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WAIFS OF WAR 


AND OTHER STORIES 
OF FRANCE 

BY 

THERESA BANNAN 



SYRACUSE, NEW YORK 
Syracuse Printing and Publishing Co. 

1924 


125T0 


COPYRIGHT, 1924 
BY 

THERESA BANNAN 



DEC 19 24 


©C1AS14316 


rt-tO I 


To the 
Physicians 
of the 

American Red Cross 


Each American may write his own 
story of the war if he wants to. 
This is mine. 


LEARNING FRENCH 


It was on Washington’s Birth¬ 
day that my journey to the seat of 
war actually began. Arrived in 
New York, passport and equipment 
arranged, there was nothing to do 
but wait for the date of sailing. 
One or two postponements gave 
more than a week of leisure with 
no inclination to seek amusement 
during those tense times. The very 
best investment of time would be 
to increase usefulness to the Red 
Cross by studying the language of 
the people whom I was to serve 
and this I did for several hours 
each day. A fair knowledge of 
book French and some familiarity 
with the idioms of other languages 
were a start but there was the 
usual lack of understanding the 
spoken word from native lips. I 


6 


WAIFS OF WAR 


found the way. A member of the 
State Department of Education 
from Central New York was at the 
same hotel as myself and gave me 
a card of introduction to one of the 
public schools. The first class I 
entered was taught by an Ameri¬ 
can and at the end of the session 
I visited another class where the 
teacher was also not teaching 
her mother tongue. It was easy to 
understand their French—too easy, 
but not much help in the task to 
which I had set myself. When I 
entered the third class my search 
was over. The Parisian born, 
teaching her mother tongue to 
young Americans left nothing to 
be desired. When she greeted me, 
saw my khaki uniform and knew 
my mission, she could not restrain 
her tears. She was in Paris at the 



learning FRENTH 7 


outbreak of the war, a witness of 
all the sorrow and tumult, a helper 
as far as might be. She was al¬ 
ready the fostermother of many 
over there—prisoners of war, ref¬ 
ugees, disabled soldiers, Belgian 
babies—to whom she sent com¬ 
forts which emptied her purse. She 
had been teaching her language for 
a quarter of a century as a lan¬ 
guage should be taught and it was a 
rare opportunity and my great good 
fortune to profit by her instruction. 
In her classroom only French was 
heard. By elaborating the lesson 
of the day and reviewing she 
brought from the lips of the pupils 
the sounds and words and phrases 
she knew would be most useful to 
me. And all the children helped. 

The first skirmish in which trib¬ 
ute was paid to my khaki uniform 



8 


WAIFS OF WAR 


occurred in her company in an inci¬ 
dent at an Italian restaurant where 
we went to dine. Our waiter, a big, 
husky fellow seemed to have some 
sort of a grouch but served us ex¬ 
cellent food nevertheless. My 
companion was a regular patron of 
the establishment and always took 
wine with dinner, the customary 
service. This time none was served 
with the first two or three courses 
and we supposed there had been 
some new wartime restriction until 
we saw our neighbors were being 
served with wine. When our un- 
amiable waiter, sullenly watching 
us from a distance, came again to 
our table we called his attention to 
the oversight. He roared at my 
companion and then at me that she 
could not have any wine, nor I 
neither, and when we regained our 



LEARNING FRENCH 9 


breath from our surprise enough to 
ask why, he again roared that it 
was because I was in uniform. 
Rather proud to be classed with our 
boys in khaki for whom this law 
was formed, I joined my companion 
in an indulgence of animal spirits 
at the amusing incident that surely 
exceeded the content of a bottle of 
red wine. Our waiter was a for¬ 
eigner and should have been in 
khaki, too. Women in uniform 
were not numerous and it seemed 
to us that only a foreigner hostile 
or very familiar with uniforms 
would have been so acutely con¬ 
scious of mine. 


Learning French was my chief 
occupation aboard ship. At the 
pier I noticed two nuns returning 



IO 


WAIFS OF WAR 


to their home in France. Outside 
the rail were two others who had 
come with them. These were 
Americans and told me the others 
had come from Canada to New 
York and spoke only French. At my 
request they waved a sort of in¬ 
troduction to the French nuns on 
the pier and I then and there 
adopted them for the voyage. The 
superior sat next to me at table and 
the other spent most of the voyage 
seasick in her cabin. Every one 
studied French — men who were 
professors of that language at 
home listened eagerly to any na¬ 
tive aboard. It proved difficult to 
sustain French with anyone who 
spoke English. Arrived in France, 
opportunity increased of course, 
but it was possible always to find 



THE COMMANDANT n 


an interpreter and many did it and 
lost much in the interpretation. 

THE COMMANDANT 

The Commandant and his wife 
were on their way to France after 
three years in service in New Cale¬ 
donia sending troops to the scene 
of war. For twenty-five years he 
had been in the colonial service in 
Madagascar and now was looking 
forward to release from military 
duty and recuperation of health, 
not knowing the conditions to 
which he was returning. Little 
news filtered through to his terri¬ 
tory in the southern seas and no 
one aboard could give him any reli¬ 
able information. When a message 
was received by wireless addressed 
to the senior in rank on board, it 



12 


WAIFS OF WAR 


was delivered to him and the news 
was probably not reassuring. 

He was easily the most interest¬ 
ing character aboard ship—keen, 
witty, broadminded, dignified yet 
with a twinkle in his eye that made 
one think of D’Artagnan grown old, 
with the dash and fire a little 
dimmed. And he, too, was a Gas¬ 
con. His decorations were many 
and safe in the custody of his wife 
rather than in display. 

He was not to be released in 
spite of age and infirmity but con¬ 
tinued in service in France and 
stuck to the guns until the last shot 
was fired, for of such are the sol¬ 
diers of France. 

On board ship also was His Ex¬ 
cellency returning after twenty 
months’ diplomatic service in a 
Latin country, to his wife and his 



ABOARD 


13 


children and his home. There was 
another diplomat whose services in 
South America had kept one of 
those important republics with the 
Allies. There was another officer 
whose humbler duties for three 
years had been the purchase of 
horses for his army. One man 
aboard had been a teacher in a 
school in Mexico and had not seen 
his native land in eighteen years. 
He was a monk recalled to military 
duty as nurse or stretcher-bearer. 
Two nuns who proved to be poor 
sailors were returning from Can¬ 
ada after an absence of four years. 
Their baggage was scrutinized 
very carefully and the rumor 
aboard was that many a spy had 
adopted the robes of a nun and 
been apprehended and so no 
chances were taken with these dis- 



14 


WAIFS OF WAR 


tinctly inoffensive, loyal French¬ 
women. An opera troupe aboard 
was a more likely guise for such 
secret service but these were fre¬ 
quent passengers and well known 
in Paris. Few of the Europeans 
were in uniform until we arrived in 
the danger zone when the officers 
put on the uniform of their rank. 
There was the usual speculation 
about our safety because we might 
be carrying mail and other things 
useful to the enemy who would on 
that account spare our ship. 

AN INTERVIEW 

Ship rumor had it that everyone 
on board was more or less under 
observation in addition to the rigid 
requirements for embarkation. 
One evening during the latter part 
of the voyage, while chatting in the 



AN INTERVIEW 


15 


salon, the gallant little aviator who 
had been instructing our boys on 
this side, came to me and requested 
me to go with him to the office of 
the ship’s doctor to decide an argu¬ 
ment that had arisen on a medical 
subject. The request appeared so 
ridiculous that I laughed but he in¬ 
sisted in all seriousness and at 
great length in his acquired Eng¬ 
lish that he had been sent to find 
me and that his friends were await¬ 
ing me. I found there the diplo¬ 
mat, serious, distinguished; the 
ship’s commissaire who seemed to 
be the ship’s master, affable, court¬ 
eous; a passenger whom I had not 
before observed whom they called 
doctor—a specialist in chemistry 
who was familiar with the prod¬ 
ucts of my own home city; the avi¬ 
ator, with his blond head and red 



i6 


WAIFS OF WAR 


trousers and earnest gallantry; and 
the ship’s doctor as host greeting 
me fraternally. 

I was ushered to a seat in the 
corner of the cabin with the bows 
and smiles of these five gentlemen. 
For my part, my feelings were not 
those of politeness. On the con¬ 
trary I was disposed to act as I 
would with my own countrymen 
under the same circumstances and 
ask them what was on their minds. 
However such a question would 
probably not have been understood 
and their reception of me called for 
answering courtesy at least. 

It was clear the medical argu¬ 
ment which was presented to me 
was only an introduction. First I 
was thanked by them individually 
and collectively for the many kind¬ 
nesses they said I had done on 



AN INTERVIEW 


]7 

board. For me, this may have been 
preliminary to throwing me over¬ 
board or accusing me of something 
but they disclaimed any such 
thought. They wanted to know 
what I was going to do in France, 
what America thought of France, 
what America thought of England, 
and many other things during 
the long session. My own mis¬ 
sion was easy to explain. 
What America thought of France 
was identical with what the 
whole world thought. For poli¬ 
tical judgment of other nations I 
referred them to the men on board 
—members of the Army and other 
organizations. What they really 
wanted to know I was unable to 
guess but they probably found out, 
for they poured champagne and 
begged me to toast their country, 



i8 


WAIFS OF WAR 


to toast my own, to toast our Pres¬ 
ident. For the rest of the journey 
and later in Paris, they were like 
old friends. 


PARIS 

Paris! The first glimpse of its 
beauties was from the end of an 
ambulance as it traversed the Place 
de la Concorde and the boulevards 
on its way to the hotel. Then a 
room on the top floor with a dor¬ 
mer-window and sloping ceiling 
and an outlook over the chimneys 
to the roof and flying figures of the 
Opera. It was to be an outlook 
also on the air-raids of the enemy 
in the nights that followed, when 
the city asleep in the white moon¬ 
light roused at the alerte that 
told of the hostile approach. A 
great city silent as a rural habita- 



PARIS 


19 


tion, its boulevards half in ideep 
shadow under the moon's rays, its 
houses shuttered, its people expect¬ 
ant, night after night roused to the 
sound of the siren screaming 
through the streets. The moon¬ 
light magic was broken by aerial 
explosions, the flight of planes, the 
circling and signalling of great 
searchlights, until it seemed as if 
the very stars had left their places 
and taken part in the phenomena. 

Within a few days a new danger 
came from the skies. The alerte 
was sounded as usual and the peo¬ 
ple sought safety in their cellars. 
But the usual did not follow and 
there was confusion in the inter¬ 
pretation of the event. Another 
explosion and yet no aircraft visi¬ 
ble in the morning skies, and other 
explosions and still no enemy 



20 


WAIFS OF WAR 


planes. By the second day the ex¬ 
planation was forthcoming but was 
scarcely credible—that a gun at an 
un-heard-of distance was throwing 
these bombs into Paris. So the 
“big bertha” came first and many 
times, a Jupiter really thundering 
in a clear sky. 

The loss of sleep by the night 
raids was perhaps the greatest loss 
produced yet it could be partially 
compensated by sleeping in the day¬ 
time until the arrival of “bertha”. 
The loss of sleep is no mean factor 
in any case and many who had re¬ 
mained in Paris up to this time, left 
for the South—to get some sleep. 
Besides the enemy was not very 
far away and the refugees were 
pouring in from Noyon and Mont- 
didier. 



PARIS 


21 


It required several days in Paris 
to obtain the necessary papers of 
both governments to go about the 
business in hand. The great work 
of the American Red Cross at this 
time is a matter of record. My part 
in it was to assist in equiping those 
who might be sent to meet the in¬ 
coming refugees at the railroads 
or on the highways. When the 
emergency was passed there was 
time to wander about the city, in 
the hospitals housed in old cloisters 
of centuries past, along the river 
bank, through quaint, narrow, old 
streets with their hundred sur¬ 
prises of architectual beauty hid¬ 
den behind their angles, in the 
parks with their sculpture and 
their vistas, to the historic build¬ 
ings and monuments, finding famil¬ 
iar names almost lost to memory, 



22 


WAIFS OF WAR 


and new names to be for future 
study, when, if ever, the war would 
be over and the perusal of books 
again be a pastime. 

One should go to Paris when 
young and browse among the miles 
of book stalls from Notre Dame to 
the Louvre, and contemplate the 
arts and crafts of endless variety— 
painting, sculpture, decorative art, 
engraving, jewelry, etching, wood¬ 
carving, gold and silver and bronze 
creations, porcelain, pottery, arms, 
mosaic, tapestry, lace, textures, 
glass, pearls, brass, embroidery or 
any other product of human skill 
which are, at best, only an index of 
the treasure of the city. Youth 
then realizes and may thereafter 
dream of the reality; for those 
older, the conditions are reversed 
and a visit to Paris is the realiza- 



PARIS 


23 


tion of dreams. Better late than 
never. 

STREET FAIRS 

Not everything is beautiful that 
is interesting. The street fairs may 
subject one to unpleasant jostling 
and the likelihood of attracting to 
one’s clothing certain little pests 
that were not mentioned much be¬ 
fore our boys over there wrote 
home about them. The Parisians 
themselves, with characteristic 
humor, recognize their existence by 
a slight elision in word-play. These 
fairs have booths along the streets 
or the vendors may spread their 
wares on the ground, which is 
cheaper. At night everything is 
locked up in a box or bag, chained 
to a post 6r staple in the street and 
left until the next day. 



24 


WAIFS OF WAR 


A fair is held every Sunday up be¬ 
yond the Montmartre just outside 
the city wall, where there is a set¬ 
tlement of people in shanties and 
all sorts of tumbledown structures 
scarcely recognizable as human 
habitations. Visitors do not come 
here singly even in the day time as 
safety is in numbers. It is said to 
be the rendezvous of that elusive 
gentry, the Apaches, but is prob¬ 
ably tenanted by less noted vaga¬ 
bonds and unfortunates. At their 
weekly fair which extends parallel 
to the city wall as well as along the 
road for a considerable distance, 
there is offered for sale almost 
everything from fried fish to a but¬ 
ton, a great collection of junk and 
yet a clearing house for the poor. 



FAIRS 


25 


Artistic things have ready buyers 
—books, pictures, brass, cabinets. 
The merchants may be men, women 
or the whole family. They do not 
vary much from the types of the 
French writers. No stretch of the 
imagination is necessary to credit 
them with defiance of law and or¬ 
der, and yet their only crime may 
be poverty. 

Montmartre in days gone by, 
was said to be very wicked, with 
naughty restaurants and naughty 
actors to shock those seeking new 
sensations. And then came along 
some prosaic person who investi¬ 
gated and found that some very re¬ 
spectable Montmartrians earned a 
comfortable living by playing the 
naughty for the strangers within 
their gates. 



26 


WAIFS OF WAR 


THE SURGEON 

A wrong turn in the road on the 
first walking trip of the Spring led 
me into a woodland where acres of 
hyacinths nodded in the gentle 
breeze. Along the way were a few 
excursionists from Paris, here, 
where for years thousands came to 
make merry in those care-free days 
before the war. One group was an 
officer and his wife and four sons, 
and the red velvet of his cap was 
the welcome sign of the medical 
man. He gave me the right hand 
of fellowship and a welcome to his 
family circle. It is repetition to 
say that he was handsome. There 
are many handsome men in France. 
He wore the croix de guerre with 
citations and the insignia of twice- 
wounded. He was charming with 



THE SURGEON 


27 


an enduring grace that lost noth¬ 
ing in the succeeding year of 
friendship. He spoke English with 
an eagerness for ever greater facil¬ 
ity and his children shared his in¬ 
terest. A specialist in a large city 
of Alsace, a surgeon in the army, 
and now attached to the service of 
the great military hospital of Val- 
de-Grace, he lived with his family 
in Paris until free to return home 
and begin again his professional 
career. He was unusually tall and 
graceful, with large dark eyes and 
complexion of cream and roses, 
dignified and kindly, not easily for¬ 
gotten. 

WITH THE SAVANTS 

One Sunday afternoon's excur¬ 
sion, interesting in its novelty, 
found me sipping coffee in an up- 



28 


WAIFS OF WAR 


per room of a restaurant near 
Notre Dame, with a society of anti¬ 
quarians devoted to excavations 
and old books. They were, for the 
most part, very old, the women 
somewhat younger. They met 
here once a week and sipped coffee 
or wine with the bread they 
brought from home, while they ex¬ 
hibited and discussed charts and 
photographs and some books from 
the first printing-press of Guten¬ 
berg. They probably do not yet 
know how I happened to be among 
them but accepted me cordially 
when they found me there. My 
escort was a doctor in the khaki 
uniform of the army of the East, 
a chemist and x-ray specialist. 
Wandering in the Latin Quarter in 
the silent streets of schools, he had 
answered my inquiries with the 



THE SAVANTS 


29 


politeness of a Frenchman, diffi¬ 
dent of speech and not knowing a 
single word of English. He was a 
member of this society and invited 
me to accompany him and we 
sipped coffee while awaiting the 
other members. 

The doctor was an infant in 
years compared with the other 
members but they appeared to look 
up to him as an authority. The dis¬ 
cussion was not sufficiently attrac¬ 
tive to keep me indoors in Paris on 
a beautiful day in Spring and the 
doctor managed to be excused to 
show me the wreck of the church 
nearby where the long-distance gun 
had found its mark. Here we were 
admitted because we were military 
as we had been earlier admitted to 
Cluny by the same magic sign. 



30 


WAIFS OF WAR 


THE DEPUTY 

He was the member of the Cham¬ 
ber of Deputies for the territory in 
which our hospital was situated. 
He spoke English, spoke it freely, 
too freely, we thought who heard 
him with amazement if not with a 
tinge of terror as he discussed the 
war in language not at all moder¬ 
ate. He denounced his country for 
having rejected the enemy’s offer 
of peace, declaring that she would 
have gained thereby and been 
spared the added ruin that followed 
her refusal. He scoffed at those 
who refused to accept the musical 
and artistic creations of the enemy. 
It may be that he spoke so freely 
thinking he would not be under¬ 
stood except by the two Americans 
in the railway coach, but he prob¬ 
ably well knew that in France it is 



THE DEPUTY 


3 i 


not safe to follow such a presump¬ 
tion even to speak Chinese or Per¬ 
sian. His eyes could not fail to see 
the warning affixed to the ceiling 
and the window pane of the coach 
and in every place where men con¬ 
verse: “Taisez vous, mefiez vous, 
les oreilles ennemies vous ecou- 
tent.” He apparently did not care if 
the enemies’ ears were stretched to 
hear him. He was a socialist mem¬ 
ber. He had married a German, 
the daughter of a socialist. His 
own father had been a refugee in 
England during the Commune and 
his own life had its storms. Among 
his own people his name was re¬ 
ceived with grave countenance. 

His card gave admission to a ses¬ 
sion or seance of the Chamber 
after a procedure of signing a card 
and giving it with the card of the 



32 


WAIFS OF WAR 


Member to a functionary at the 
threshold of an inner room. After 
a time comes the summons in sten¬ 
torian tones to pass this threshold 
and wait. Then an official leads 
you through various halls and pas- 
sages and stairways into the 
Chamber. 

Every Frenchman smiles when 
he speaks of the sessions of the 
Chamber and expects the stranger 
to admit that it is noisy and undig¬ 
nified which of course no stranger 
would admit although he might 
find it so. All halls of legislature 
depart in this respect from the high 
standard of the school debating 
club where parliamentary law is 
enforced or the society goes to 
pieces. In the Chamber of Depu¬ 
ties it seemed as if the speaker did 
not have a fair chance, but he prob- 



THE DEPUTY 


33 


ably did. He was often interrupted 
and his disturber in turn inter¬ 
rupted by another with argument 
back and forth among several 
members while the presiding offi¬ 
cer, busy in conversation, only oc¬ 
casionally became conscious of the 
general disturbance and used the 
gavel. Meanwhile many other 
groups carried on independent 
movements, paying no attention to 
the speaker. The marvel remains 
that out of all this apparent confu¬ 
sion decisions are reached and 
France speaks. 

A second visit to the Chamber of 
Deputies a year later was attended 
by a charming little incident. The 
deputy failed to attend that day. 
Twice mademoiselle and I were 
about to leave but were urged 
to wait by an officer who 



34 


WAIFS OF WAR 


finally said “You are an American, 
and you, mademoiselle, are for this 
occasion an American and we re¬ 
fuse them nothing’' and we were 
ushered into the Chamber. 

The last visit with the Deputy 
was on a midnight return from 
Paris where he had been dining 
with the Irish delegates to the 
Peace Conference. 

THE SENATOR 

The Senate was of course less 
turbulent than the Chamber of 
Deputies. The Senator himself 
conducted me up the grand stair¬ 
way of honor to the room of the 
Medicis, said to be the most beauti¬ 
ful in Paris. He was often a fellow 
traveler on the train and we always 
conversed but I had not identified 
him as a Senator. He quite star- 



COMMUTERS 


35 


tied me when in answer to my an¬ 
nouncement that I was on my way 
that afternoon to visit the Senate, 
he smilingly declared that he 
would go with me and he did. He 
had been a physician for many 
years. 

COMMUTERS 

Many Parisians are in reality sub¬ 
urbanites and commute on the leis¬ 
urely trains for luncheon. They thus 
often became my fellow-travelers. 
They were of course beyond mili¬ 
tary age. Nearly all wore some 
badge of honor. Some were teach¬ 
ers in the Sorbonne. One was a dis¬ 
tinguished explorer and his name 
is inscribed in the Louvre on the 
walls of the room that holds his 
treasures. His greater treasure of 
gallant sons lies on the field of 



36 WAIFS OF WAR 


honor. Another was an engineer 
in the department of posts and tel¬ 
egraphs. His son was in the army 
of the East at Salonika and hoped 
some day to complete his dental 
studies in America, with the best 
dentists of the world. Another 
was engineer in the department of 
railways and highways. He too 
wore a mourning band for a son. 
There was an East Indian merchant 
whose son was here at school. Oc¬ 
casionally madame accompanied 
her husband. She was as a rule 
many years his junior and the chil¬ 
dren might have been in age the 
grandchildren of their sires. They 
were all very much interested in 
our country and in our President. 
They tried to learn our college yells 
as a first lesson in English and the 
effort and result were very funny. 



THE ODEON 


37 


The Odeon was not far from the 
railroad terminal. A lady next me 
helped me understand the play and 
instead of sauntering out between 
the acts as the whole audience 
does, remained to converse -with 
me. Her husband had been for 
many years in the French commer¬ 
cial service in China and she and 
her father were both journalists 
there. After a little family confer¬ 
ence they invited me to promenade 
with them after the play and we 
then sipped coffee at a table out¬ 
side a restaurant on the boulevard. 
We were joined by an officer on 
permission in France, about to re¬ 
turn to China. In Paris the ends of 
the world meet. 

THE NUNS 

The American doctor was of 
French blood and looked it. He 



38 WAIFS OF WAR 


was of very great service to our 
boys over there. Commissioned to 
find quarters for convalescent sol¬ 
diers he took me with him out 
through Saint Cloud, round about 
Versailles, and out of the highways 
back into the fields where was a 
school building or seminary, once 
a hunting lodge or rendezvous for 
royalty. It was within the walls of 
a park and silent as were its hun¬ 
dreds of students who had left 
their books to repel the invader. 

No one was visible but we 
chanced on the right entrance. At 
the farther end of a wide hall was 
a room where a very very old Sis¬ 
ter sat sewing. We met on the 
threshold and then saw she was not 
alone but one of five all equally 
old. They arose in gentle greeting. 
The Sister in charge suddenly dis- 



MONTMARTRE 


39 


covered that we were Americans 
and uttered a little joyous cry that 
brought the others to her side and 
they pressed our hands and mur¬ 
mured: 

“O America that saves us 1” 
MONTMARTRE 

A few days vacation were spent 
in Montmartre, my hostess a 
widow most of whose life had been 
spent in this region. Perhaps half 
a dozen times only had she traveled 
as far as the banks of the Seine. 
She knew there was a war which 
accounted for everything unusual. 
She may not yet know that the war 
is over. We lived on a boulevard 
—through an archway, past the 
concierge, into a court and up a 
winding stairway to her little part- 
ment on the third floor. The stairs 



40 


WAIFS OF WAR 


and floors were of rich dark wood 
that shone like a mirror. Cabinets 
and chairs and furnishings were 
also of beautiful woods. Heaps of 
fine linen were stored away in un¬ 
suspected little closets. The usual 
huge down pillow of red silk topped 
the elaborate covering of the rose¬ 
wood bed. The whole apartment 
of two rooms and kitchen would 
easily fit into an ordinary room and 
yet it was comfortable and ade¬ 
quate for her needs. She had lived 
alone so long that she talked to 
herself aloud, the presence of a 
stranger not even restraining the 
habit of years. She devoted her¬ 
self to me like my shadow, served 
me breakfast in bed and every 
night prepared and urged upon me 
camomile tea as a night-cap. Each 
morning I was called upon to de- 



MONTMARTRE 


4i 


dine her company in my day's ram¬ 
bles and months later to persuade 
her that I could not bring her home 
with me. We tried to dine together 
at her table but her deliberation in 
eating and the long intervals be¬ 
tween the courses would drive a 
hungry American to distraction. 
We tried to dine together at a res¬ 
taurant in this region of famous 
inns, but she evidently knew them 
not, nor knew the reputation for 
gaiety of her neighborhood; so she 
conducted me on a long weary 
walk to the conventional dining¬ 
room of the chain system variety. 
Our adventure in amusement was 
similar. Carfare was no part of 
her experience and I was kept as¬ 
sured that our destination was 
right at hand as we walked and 



42 


WAIFS OF WAR 


walked to arrive at an ordinary 
cinema. 

Montmartre is populous if one 
might judge by the night sounds 
which end at dawn. Through the 
open window, an unaccountable 
taste to the people here, came all 
the night the tramp of civilian feet 
and the rumble of traffic. All noise 
was intensified on these heights, 
especially the bombs of the air raid¬ 
ers and the crash of the “bertha”. 

A MONUMENT 

From the height crowned by the 
Sacre-Coeur is obtained a compre¬ 
hensive view of the city and sur¬ 
rounding territory. Down the slope 
from the church and near the cen¬ 
ter of what is to be a masterpiece 
of landscape art, stands the bronze 
figure of a youth. The inscription 



THE MADELEINE 43 


runs, that in the last decade of the 
eighteenth century this young 
chevalier had been stoned to 
death for refusing to salute a re¬ 
ligious procession. That was all. 
His youth and martyrdom make 
their eloquent appeal but what is 
the message of this bronze boy? 
Did his persecutors repent and, 
with unheard of generosity, offer 
him this statue in reparation, or is 
it a warning to youth? The answer 
is said to be this: More than half 
a century after this event there 
came into power in this city a free- 
thinking or atheistic faction that 
found expression in the erection of 
this monument as a protest of an¬ 
other faction's intolerance. 

THE MADELEINE 

In spite of my preoccupation 
from the sadness of the congrega- 



44 


WAIFS OF WAR 


tion, the absence of youth from 
chancel and choir and pulpit and 
pew, and the general impression of 
the presence of many strangers, 
gradually the compelling sweetness 
of voice and instrument penetrated 
my abstraction. It was Easter. 
The sermon became not only a 
spiritual message but a lesson in 
oratory from a master. Every syl¬ 
lable was audible without in any 
degree restricting the swell and ca¬ 
dences of the art, the clearness of 
thought, or the development of the 
theme. 

In the course of reading, an ex¬ 
pressive French word in italics is 
apt to have individual interpreta¬ 
tion. I could not know that I should 
first hear the word sangfroid 
from the lips of a priest in the pul¬ 
pit of the Madeleine as a synonym 



THE MADELEINE 45 


of the deepest and holiest expres¬ 
sion of the civilian courage of a 
deathless nation. “Let us preserve 
our ‘sangfroid’ ” he exhorted. Two 
days before, on Good Friday, a sis¬ 
ter church had been bombed, sev¬ 
enty-five women and children wor¬ 
shippers killed and many wounded. 
French gentlewomen working with 
us in civilian relief were among 
them, we learned, from the inter¬ 
ruption of the work they shared 
and the news that gradually fil¬ 
tered through official reticence. 
“Let us preserve our ‘sangfroid’, 
even though at this moment the 
deadly messenger be winging its 
way to us”. 

On a subsequent visit to the 
Madeleine, on the feast of the pa¬ 
tron saint of the Church, there was 
added to eloquence, all the bril- 



46 WAIFS OF WAR 


liancy and warmth and dramatic 
gifts of the Latin. A preacher of 
no other blood, be he celibate or 
wedded, could compose and deliver 
with such perfect artistry, a ser¬ 
mon on a Madeleine. The perora¬ 
tion—an appeal to France, now 
suffering her fiery ordeal, to purge 
herself of sin; to Paris, to repent 
the habits of luxury and vice that 
have made her the cafe chantant 
of Europe, and with her beauty and 
wealth and intellect and grace of 
a Madeleine, inspire to noble deeds. 

NOTRE DAME 

To Notre Dame the visitor comes 
again and again, in gray days or 
gold, in moonlight or mist, to view 
this temple of the centuries, this 
library of stones. Its story is the 
masterpiece of a great French 



NOTRE DAME 


47 


writer woven around the life his¬ 
tory of an unfortunate hunchback, 
familiar to the French by his 
proper name, to us by his deform¬ 
ity. It was, therefore, with only 
mild surprise, on my first visit to 
Notre Dame to see a hunchback 
dart from a tiny recess under the 
organ, for a brief errand, and dart 
back again to his pedals. 



48 WAIFS OF WAR 


BEAUVAIS 

My first work in Paris was as 
substitute for a doctor, assisting in 
an office, with a registry of avail¬ 
able personnel and scouting 
throughout the city for medical 
supplies to equip doctors and 
nurses hastening to meet the refu¬ 
gees swarming the highways from 
the North. Two of these nurses 
had been fellow passengers on 
board ship and were thus early 
sent off in camions into the un¬ 
known dangers to arrive at last in 
Beauvais and serve there many 
many months. 

My assignment from the first 
had been to the children's depart¬ 
ment of the American Red Cross 
Hospital for tuberculous women at 
Plessis-Piquet or, as the mayor had 



HACHETTE 


49 


recently adopted the name, Plessis- 
Robinson. The guide books de¬ 
scribe this place on the other side 
of the hill from our hospital as a 
popular resort and the new mayor 
of Plessis-Piquet with non-Gallic 
taste stretched the appellation to 
our side of the “fold in the hills.” 

Our hospital was named the Ed¬ 
ward L. Trudeau Sanatorium, but 
better known to the French as 
Chateau Hachette from its recent 
owner, the publisher, who had 
traced the history of this estate 
back to the original grant in the 
twelfth century. Its extensive 
park with an unsurpassed view 
from the terrace, was said to have 
been the work of the landscape 
artist of Versailles. The whole 
property was enclosed—park, farm, 
garden, and buildings—by a high 



50 


WAIFS OF WAR 


wall, and the approach, besides the 
main gate and avenue at the foot of 
the hill was the narrow winding 
road which may have been the 
moat of feudal days. 

The children’s hospital was out¬ 
side the walls of the chateau prop¬ 
erty but boasted a wall of its own, 
and a small park and fountains and 
gardens and vineyards along the 
wall many feet above the narrow 
highway. It was several weeks 
after my arrival in France before 
I was free to take up my work here 
with the children who had been ex¬ 
posed to the malady which afflicted 
their mothers ill at the chateau. 

I had scarcely begun my con¬ 
genial task examining the children 
and planning their routine or spe¬ 
cial treatment, when I was sum¬ 
moned back to Paris and told that 



HACHETTE 


5i 


the little experience I had as substi¬ 
tute had brought a request from 
the Department of Military Affairs 
of the Red Cross that I be loaned 
to them, to meet some need. It was 
to me a proud distinction which not 
even the maddening delay of mili¬ 
tary papers could entirely destroy. 
I was no less proud of the open 
envy of my f e 11 o w-workers, 
smouldering in their eyes, even 
with their unmistakable good-will. 
There was not a man or woman 
whom I knew, whether a chief of a 
bureau, the director of a hospital, 
or in any service whatever who 
would not have left his post for a 
field of work near our boys. Most 
of us of the Red Cross were dis¬ 
qualified for service with our mili¬ 
tary forces and could only trail 
along as auxiliaries, fulfilling the 



52 


WAIFS OF WAR 


duty assigned us as faithful 
soldiers; yet our enthusiasm and 
patriotism burned steadily in the 
atmosphere of the French capital 
and our red blood called us to dan¬ 
ger. 

There was often in the non-mar- 
tial breast at Paris the feeling of a 
surrounding danger and this was 
intensified as military restrictions 
tightened. After disappointments 
and delays my official papers finally 
arrived and I went to Beauvais just 
as our wounded boys were brought 
in from Cantigny. This had cre¬ 
ated an emergency. Two nurses 
who had been my fellow-passen¬ 
gers aboard ship were here in hos¬ 
pitals and it was another of our 
ship’s company, a gentleman of the 
South, who unexpectedly received 
me at headquarters. During the 



BEAUVAIS 


53 


ensuing weeks, with fine courtesy, 
he kept the balance of influence in 
our numerous household and tran¬ 
sient hospitality, and eased the 
tension of our men thrown to¬ 
gether in a new experience of a so¬ 
ciety wholly masculine. 

These were days of anxiety and 
nights of danger, with always the 
expectation of an order to evacu¬ 
ate. It was the grim business of 
war at Beauvais. The first two 
days and nights the movement of 
troops to the east was continuous, 
the camions thundered by, filled 
with French soldiers covered with 
the white dust that frosted their 
eyelashes and beards and the blue 
of their uniforms. Every night 
the unlighted engines chugged 
away into the darkness with the 
heavy trains of supplies—the co- 



54 


WAIFS OF WAR 


veted target of enemy bombing 
planes. 

It was the day before memorial 
Day that it became my priceless 
privilege to serve our wounded sol¬ 
diers. Thoughts of the signifi¬ 
cance of the day were checked and 
no word of it allowed to escape the 
lips to those soon to be candidates 
for our thanks and prayers and 
tears. 

THE ABBE 

On the train going North from 
Paris in the last week of May in 
the last year of the war, a young 
priest in cassock and cloak and 
wearing the “croix de guerre” with 
citations, seemed to welcome any 
friendly advance to conversation 
to while away the time. He spoke 
English because he had spent two 



THE ABBE 


55 


or three years in study across the 
channel. He was very handsome 
and athletic. From the peaceful 
life as director of a seminary he 
was drawn into the vortex of war 
as chaplain and litter-bearer and 
was now returning from his per¬ 
mission. We were traveling to¬ 
wards danger and were in the mili¬ 
tary zone and the prospects were 
not cheerful. Before us were the 
scenes of nightly air raids, and, a 
little beyond, the doubtful battle¬ 
field, his destination; yet his brow 
was unruffled. He calmly munched 
his breakfast of bread and choco¬ 
late from a scanty wad of paper. 

A year later he writes: “As for 
me after our meeting in the train 
from Paris, I was with my division 
and particularly with the —th 
Regiment of Infantry at two great 



56 WAIFS OF WAR 


attacks, the first at the end of May 
and commencement of June, where 
we helped stop the German ad¬ 
vance near Villers Cotterets; in the 
second, south ’ of the Marne, the 
18th of July, we attacked victori¬ 
ously the Germans and forced them 
to retreat about four kilometres. 
In all the attacks I escaped injury 
in spite of the dangers and I thank 
God for having protected me so 
visibly. The end of the war was a 
triumph for us. We were in Al¬ 
sace and the troops of my division 
were among those first who en¬ 
tered Strassbourg. In this last city 
I saw the most magnificent recep¬ 
tion that one could imagine.” And 
he adds, “That which we will not 
forget in France are the beautiful 
qualities of the American tempera¬ 
ment which have so largely con- 



BEAUVAIS 


57 


tributed to raise our spirit and 
finally to give us complete triumph 
over our enemies.” 

BEAUVAIS 

The town had been practically 
deserted for some time and as the 
night raids continued and the word 
spread that the enemy had vowed 
the destruction of the town, those 
who had remained began also to 
leave, with their household goods 
on any conveyance possible. Some 
went to the woods or the fields or 
the caves for the night and re¬ 
returned in the morning—the old 
men and women, the sick and even 
the insane. There was an immense 
grotto carved out of the hill, where 
hundreds slept—the white earth in 
arches and galleries and recesses 
and corridors with candles here 



58 WAIFS OF WAR 


and there giving the only light, as 
at Christmas cribs in church. 

The hotel was deserted soon 
after dinner, scant enough and ad¬ 
vanced an hour to give time to 
reach a haven. Once or twice the 
raid was on before bedtime and in 
the dark sitting room, the one old 
man left in charge darted here and 
there among his few guests. 

Day by day conditions were 
worse. The hostess could not even 
keep account and cheated herself. 
The few guests and transient mili¬ 
tary found the latchstring out, it is 
true, but little to be had within. 
Each morning gave evidence of the 
penetrating power of a bomb and 
the five-story hotel offered little 
promise of protection. One was an 
orphanage from which the children 
had been evacuated the preceding 



BEAUVAIS 


59 


day. Several hospitals were hit. 
Four bombs struck a public build¬ 
ing, one of them straight into a 
well. 

The prospect of much brick and 
mortar heaped on me and the labor 
of search by fellow workers of the 
Red Cross presented itself to my 
mind one night when a raid was on 
and buildings tumbled in a circle 
around the hotel. So next day I 
moved up near headquarters where 
I knew a pick and shovel were kept 
for just such emergencies and that 
our captain sallied forth to help 
after every raid. 

AN AIR RAID 

The barrage was on. It mingled 
in the subconsciousness of sleep 
before awakening brought the 
thunderous orchestra of explosions. 



6 o 


WAIFS OF WAR 


The guns were near—boom, boom, 
always the same degree of near¬ 
ness — boom, boom — sending its 
echoes to the near hills which en¬ 
circle this little town. In this basin 
mingled the various tones of all the 
guns of the watchers on the hills— 
boom, boom, and the rat-tat-tat- 
tat of the machine guns somewhere 
in the valley—bing, bing, the iron 
rain on the tiles nearby, and 
sharply punctuating, the exclaim¬ 
ing bomb s—one-two-three-four, 
and the answering roar of the guns 
silencing the crash of walls above 
the unhappy people. The moment’s 
lull, now and then, sustained the 
ominous buzz of the hostile air¬ 
craft, persistent, penetrating, 
threatening, in an instant lost in 
the crash of the defending guns. 
Every quarter of an hour the three 



AN AIR RAID 


61 


steeples spoke in tongues always 
brazen, but now in the din, mellow 
as the voices of birds—marking 
time while death and destruction 
poured upon the little town. Then 
silence while the strained ear re¬ 
tained the ominous buzz of danger 
long after it had passed, to come 
again perhaps in reality with re¬ 
newed terror. 

It was all very near in this small 
town whose circle of hills is 
crowned with hospitals. The red 
cross of broken tile in the huge cir¬ 
cle of quarried chalk within the 
open court, became a target in¬ 
stead of a sanctuary, and blood¬ 
stained and piteously symbolic. 

Of these ill-omened visitors of 
the air, starlight and calm become 
the unnatural allies, but for the 
civilians herald of disturbance and 



62 


WAIFS OF WAR 


unrest. At the alerte, old men and 
women, infants and invalids, rise 
from sleep to seek places of shelter 
wherever promised. There is a 
knock at the door, a shuffle of feet 
in the hall, whispers, then silence 
and darkness within. The storm 
of shells rages arid passes and then 
life is resumed little by little to the 
glad notes of “all's well” be it bugle 
or bell or gun. 

Well, what to do during a raid— 
to stay in bed and take a chance, or 
to descend to the ground floor or 
cellar or cave? The wise ones have 
already explained through how 
many stories the shell can pene¬ 
trate, the wisdom of descending 
and thus setting a good example, 
the need of seeking safety since 
usefulness depends on safety and 
the expense incurred by the trip 



AN AIR RAID 


63 


here would be nullified by injury. 
After considering the chances my 
own decision was to remain in bed 
where the sounds of battle came 
and at times the house shook when 
the bombs fell a short distance 
away. The present comfort of the 
bed helped, as opposed to the chilly 
corridors and cave and the journey 
thereto in the midst of bombard¬ 
ment. To remain, fascinated by 
the tumult of the various sounds, 
to be a part of it, the new, the over¬ 
whelming, was irresistable. To be 
below where courage and good 
cheer and companionship prevailed 
had less attraction and there was 
always the possibility that the 
germ of fear might spring up and 
spread its contagion down there 
below. If I am ever to be afraid I 
want to face it alone. I want to 



64 WAIFS OF WAR 


put down my impressions now 
while they are fresh in my mind. I 
decided that the next night I would 
shut out the sounds by pulling the 
down quilt over my head, but I did 
not as it was too hot and the pres¬ 
ent discomfort won against the re¬ 
mote—not too remote, one, two, 
three, four, but no others that 
night. 

The fusillade was not the “eter¬ 
nal fusilladed With it all there is 
the ridiculous side. In spite of 
every danger I always think of it 
as the Fourth of July celebration 
when the guns wake me up at 
home and the final crash after an 
evening of fireworks when the re¬ 
maining “pieces” are all set off to¬ 
gether. The thought has occurred 
here as a consequence that our cel¬ 
ebration, which familiarizes our 



BEAUVAIS 


65 


small boys with these sounds, may 
have been discouraged by the 
“propaganda” whose fruits we are 
reaping. 

A FRENCH FAMILY 

My home was now with a French 
family next door to Red Cross 
headquarters. The two properties 
were about equal in design and ex¬ 
tent. There was the court in front 
separated from the street by high 
walls and the grille whose iron 
shutters gave any desired degree 
of privacy. The substantial house 
of two stories with central hall¬ 
way, built on the small scale of such 
residences, nevertheless seemed 
roomy enough for even a large 
family. The garden, narrow and 
very long was also walled-in, with 
the usual postern gateway back 



66 


WAIFS OF WAR 


upon the bend of another highway. 

This family of grandmother, fa¬ 
ther, mother and eight children— 
four boys and four girls—had not 
moved away. They had packed and 
hidden much of their furniture, 
however, so the little parlor became 
my bedroom. The children were in¬ 
tensely interested in everything 
American and were greatly excited 
by my entrance into the family cir¬ 
cle. 

We were twelve at table. Huge 
dishes of food in regular courses 
rapidly disappeared. The father 
cut off chunks of bread from the 
long loaf, having first made upon it 
with the knife, the sign of the 
cross. Cider was the table bever¬ 
age for all. A request for a drink 
of water almost created a panic. 
No one there had ever drunk water 



BEAUVAIS 


67 


and they seemed to expect instant 
calamity to the rash drinker there¬ 
of. Soon it became quite a cere¬ 
mony, for which the children 
strove, to serve the glass of water. 

Bedtime was eleven o’clock, even 
for the four-year-old. The children 
are less vigorous than ours, but 
quicker in action. They are very 
affectionate among themselves, 
content to play together, and do 
not leave their own premises. They 
play ball by kicking it and so be¬ 
come quick and sure of foot. One 
evening, one of our games resulted 
in four casualties—the youngest in 
tears to her mother’s arms, dis¬ 
qualified from the start, and the 
next youngest soon bowded over, 
and the next two sent spinning into 
the bushes, when the alarm of the 



68 


WAIFS OF WAR 


parents made itself heard above 
the gay shouts of the others. 

Every night this whole family 
left the house to sleep in the woods 
for safety. They had their own lit¬ 
tle concrete refuge in the cellar, 
the cave. The first night I remained 
alone in the house, declining to oc¬ 
cupy the cave beneath, which a di¬ 
rect hit would be sure to reach after 
passing through my bed. A short 
distance down the street, a bomb 
had sliced a house in two, exposing 
upstairs, an aged man and woman 
sitting, unharmed, at a table. 

The second night the family re¬ 
mained at home, and every night 
thereafter, in spite of air raids. It 
would be ridiculous to think that 
the presence of an American had 
bolstered up their courage, of 
which they had plenty, but some 



BEAUVAIS 


69 


change took place in their minds. 
Not even the youngest would ad¬ 
mit fear or whimper in the cave, 
during a raid. She was a little 
French girl, too proud to let the 
enemy frighten her. The grand¬ 
mother had no fear. The parents 
feared for their children, not for 
themselves. The oldest boy, within 
a few months of military age, 
counted the days until he could 
enter the army, while his mother 
counted the days with different 
thoughts. 

One night, after the ominous 
buzz of hostile planes had several 
times been heard directly overhead 
and had at last passed on and our 
own protecting batteries were si¬ 
lent, there came the sound of new 
bombardments in the distance 
which might mean the second return 



70 


WAIFS OF WAR 


of the raiders, but did not and we 
could not interpret their meaning. 
In the uncertainty, all remained in 
the cave except the father and son 
and myself who watched the fire of 
battle in the direction of Montdi- 
dier. 

These were the days when the 
father returned to his home with 
grave face because of the day's 
news, but always in his voice the 
ring of hope as he told of the ar¬ 
rival, in ever increasing numbers, 
of the American Army. He could 
bear a few more reverses because 
already, from this event, his people 
had taken heart, with faith in vic¬ 
tory assured. 

During my assignment here in 
Beauvais in touch with the First 
Division of the Army, there were 



BEAUVAIS 


7 1 


many thrills. Each American shall 
write his own story of the war if he 
wants to, and this is mine. 

It was our mission at Beauvais 
to supplement army supplies at 
need, and to furnish any possible 
comfort to our boys. 

There were here as in Paris al¬ 
ways a feeling of an enveloping un¬ 
known danger just beyond our field 
of vision. Through this surround¬ 
ing zone must pass every one who 
came to our door. Sometimes it 
was a regular messenger with a 
tiny ambulance; sometimes a swift 
courier for supplies whose lack 
conjured up visions of indescrib¬ 
able suffering; sometimes it was a 
weary young officer with silent lips 
but whose eyes spoke of a soul 
seared by horrors witnessed; some¬ 
times it was a youth with an ambu- 



72 


WAIFS OF WAR 


lance, returning to his outfit, who 
stumbled upon us by chance and 
carried away with him gifts of cho¬ 
colate and tobacco to his compan¬ 
ions long strangers to these luxu¬ 
ries, attached as they were to 
armies other than our own; often 
liaison officers, commissioners, 
clergy found ours the only open 
door for rest or food or transporta¬ 
tion. Even the mail was sent and 
received only when a messenger 
and automobile were available for 
Paris. It was primitive, grim war¬ 
time. 

Fortunately for us all, our sup¬ 
plies were in charge of a man from 
one of our Southern states who in¬ 
terpreted the spirit of the Red 
Cross as it was formulated in the 
minds of those at home who gave 
their labor and their money to 



JULY 4 


73 


lighten the burdens of war. He 
gave and gave quickly, afterwards 
attending to the required details of 
records. No messenger to us en¬ 
dured an inquisition to obtain a 
supply of coffee or risked his self- 
respect for a package of chocolate. 
There was never a suggestion that 
our soldiers were not welcome to 
the things their people at home had 
provided. 

FOURTH OF JULY 

Regardless of war we planned to 
celebrate the Fourth. At head¬ 
quarters we raised a flag-pole in 
the center of the court and to me, 
the only woman present, our cap¬ 
tain gave the honor of throwing 
Old Glory to the breeze while we 
sang The Star Spangled Banner. 



74 


WAIFS OF WAR 


The children next door had been 
busy since early morning, outside 
my window, whispering and scur¬ 
rying round with all the activity 
of preparing a surprise. The re¬ 
sult was a court decorated with 
flags and banners and festoons of 
gay colors and Old Glory in the 
place of honor. All day long the 
children were happy in the attent¬ 
ion their display attracted, and 
doubly happy if the observer was 
an American. At the end of the 
day, the family awaited my late re¬ 
turn with a special little ceremonial 
feast in honor of the day. 

There was a ball game, of course, 
in the afternoon, and in the even¬ 
ing supper and entertainment at 
the canteen of the Smith College 
Unit. 



JULY 4 


75 


The chief celebration, however, 
was by the French themselves in 
this military zone. They celebrated 
the day as if it were their own. 
Americans were few. 

In the plaza is a monument to 
Jeanne Hachette, who defended 
the town when its man-power was 
exhausted and snatched victory 
from the assailing Burgundians. 
Now her deeds are portrayed on 
the walls of the great Gothic cathe¬ 
dral and her feast celebrated with 
full liturgy. Around her statue on 
this fateful Fourth of July were 
gathered representative groups of 
Allied soldiers, with flags and music 
and flowers and ceremonies. At 
the end of the plaza, with the artis¬ 
tic facade of the Hotel de Ville as 
a background, were ranged the 
French nurses with flowing veils 



76 WAIFS OF WAR 


and arms heaped high with flow¬ 
ers; above in the balcony were the 
speakers of the day; in front the 
commanding officers, and each 
other group in its appointed place. 
I found myself in the midst of a 
hundred French medical officers 
near the section reserved for our 
troops. 

Ours were the last to arrive and 
it was doubtful if they would ar¬ 
rive because of distance, transpor¬ 
tation and war. In spite of their 
fatigue and dusty uniforms amid 
the red and gold and blue of the 
many officers, they were easily the 
center of interest. 

There was the ceremony of the 
bestowal of decorations on soldiers, 
some still swathed in bandages, 
There was the acolade, the kiss on 
both cheeks, the pinning on of the 



JULY 4 


77 


medal, the salute and all the pomp 
of military form, displacing for a 
moment the spectres of the oper¬ 
ating room in the numerous hospi¬ 
tals nearby from which most of 
them had come. In times of peace 
the whole assemblage would not 
have been considered a crowd but 
every soul in the city who was able 
was there. 

The crowning celebration was in 
the air against the limited sky area 
of the plaza. The airmen in their 
crafts sported above us, diving and 
tumbling and wheeling with whir¬ 
ring notes as if the very machines 
shared with giant glee the spirit of 
Independence. Huge airplanes, 
painted grotesquely in red and or¬ 
ange and blue and white and silver, 
with concentric circles for great 
eyes, mounted swiftly the columns 



78 WAIFS OF WAR 


of the air, turned, and dived upon 
us in the plaza with terrifying 
speed, suddenly changing course to 
skim away low over the housetops, 
with exultant clamor, and mount 
again above our head with the rev¬ 
elling contortions and explosive 
breaths of a well-satisfied monster. 

INCIDENTS 

One day a doctor from North 
Dakota, attached to the searchlight 
division of the Army came along in 
his little ambulance for medical 
supplies, and then offered to share 
with us his own scanty supply of an 
important serum, since we had 
none. He was tall and rather gaunt 
with nothing of the professional 
air, but on the spot demonstrated 
his professional skill and versatil¬ 
ity by extracting an aching and 



INCIDENTS 


79 


condemned tooth of one of the 
boys. In the course of conversa¬ 
tion he casually exhibited a scar of 
transfusion. The history of the 
scar came to us shortly after from 
two sources, from his captain who 
praised him and from a nurse who 
visited us. 

This nurse on her way back to 
the French with whom she served 
had joined company with some offi¬ 
cers outward bound somewhere, 
and came to our headquarters for 
dinner with them. She was very 
handsome, with large dark eyes, 
well-trained, evidently the idol of 
the French and most certainly a 
delight to us in our sombre mascu¬ 
line household. She was from New 
York and in Paris at the beginning 
of the war. She went to the Amer¬ 
ican Ambulance to serve and 



8o 


WAIFS OF WAR 


trained for nursing and was with 
the French. We offered her our 
services including a bouquet of 
roses from the garden. Her great¬ 
est need, however, was a few yards 
of table oilcloth. We gave her the 
lead in conversation, content to 
listen and watch the play of her 
features, and she mentioned the 
doctor and his transfusion experi¬ 
ence. It was a story probably 
many times duplicated in the war 
and of no great interest at most ex¬ 
cept for its novelty. It seems that 
one day the doctor came upon an 
officer, a lieutenant like himself, 
who on a reconnaissance, had just 
had his thigh shattered by a stray 
shell. The doctor applied first aid, 
bundled him into a motorcycle car 
and away to the nearest station, 
and then lay beside him on the 



INCIDENTS 


81 


operating table and gave him the 
blood that saved his life. The nurse 
was on duty at the station and 
might have been called upon to 
give hers too. 


One evening in this deserted 
town of Beauvais, came a dozen 
khaki clad youth rollicking down 
the street and with roving eyes 
scanning the shuttered houses for 
a glimpse that might cheer them 
on their way. They were with the 
French army somewhere in the 
neighborhood and with mutual sur¬ 
prise we recognized that we were 
all from the same city at home. 


They might have been twins, 
these two handsome young men 



82 


WAIFS OF WAR 


brought into the hospital from 
Cantigny. Both had chest wounds 
involving the lungs, but with no 
disfiguring marks upon their splen¬ 
did naked bodies. Death soon ended 
the agony of the young lieutenant 
and we buried him with his com¬ 
panions four deep in the white soil 
they had died to redeem. Often 
during these days there were not 
enough flags to drape the coffins 
of our gallant dead, nor people 
enough free from exacting service 
to the living to follow them to the 
grave. Today, our two ministers, 
who served the wounded, two doc¬ 
tors, and four nurses gave this last 
tribute to them all in the person of 
the lieutenant. Paths in the ceme¬ 
tery, strewn with fragments of 
shell from the last air raid held our 
eyes on the ground to the edge of 



INCIDENTS 


83 


the new-made graves and then 
above us, two miles in the blue, ap¬ 
peared a squadron of planes which 
passed above us and circled back in 
the direction from which they 
came—twenty-one, one for each 
year of the young lieutenant's life. 


The departure of the First Divi¬ 
sion for another sector modified 
the work of the Red Cross in this 
region and I returned to Paris in 
time to celebrate Bastille Day, and 
soon after to Plessis-Piquet and 
Chauteau Hachette. 



84 WAIFS OF WAR 


THE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL 

An infant crying in the night, 
not the night of the open air and 
the home, but the night of the cave, 
the shelter from the bombs that 
whistled overhead, the bed of 
straw on the damp earth and the 
croon of the refugee mother fumb¬ 
ling for her new-born. Soon both 
will be on the highway to swell the 
ranks marching towards the city. 
Their unaccustomed feet will miss 
the soft earth of the farm and their 
senses reel with the confusion of 
sounds. Cities like Paris, Lyons 
and Marseilles have received each 
a million or more from the country. 

The agricultural problem, acute 
throughout the world before the 
war, now multifold, may well stag¬ 
ger even France, France always re¬ 
nascent, constructive, ready to rise 



WAIFS OF WAR 85 


from disaster at the earliest possi¬ 
ble hour. How overwhelming the 
disaster of war her devastated 
regions show! Men and women 
drawn back to the place that was 
once home give up hope and return 
to the city. 

After three years or more of 
war, the soldier, the poilu, at the 
front, uncertain of the fate of his 
family in the invaded regions, suf¬ 
fering all the horrors of war, might 
easily have faltered at his task. He 
did not because there was nothing 
beyond, no hope in this world if the 
enemy were victorious. To his aid 
there came from across the Atlan¬ 
tic not only a brother in arms but 
a friend to comfort him. 

The American Red Cross saw fit 
to undertake civilian relief in addi¬ 
tion to its regular service to the 



86 


WAIFS OF WAR 


army. The crowded cities with the 
housing problem, the sick, the chil¬ 
dren, the wounded from the front 
called upon the widest resources of 
the generous American people. 
Various bureaus of relief were or¬ 
ganized, the most interesting per¬ 
haps the Children’s bureau. There 
were sub-divisions within each bur¬ 
eau corresponding to the divisions 
of a family, men, women, boys and 
girls. 

The problem of tuberculosis in 
the civilian population of France, 
as of America and the rest of the 
world, loomed large. Dr. Hermann 
Biggs, New York State Commis¬ 
sioner of Health, had been in 
France to investigate and recom¬ 
mend measures of relief. As a re¬ 
sult, in time, there were opened in 
France tuberculosis hospitals, one 



WAIFS OF WAR 87 


about seven miles southwest of 
Paris in an old chateau, the prop¬ 
erty of the department of the Seine. 
It is still Chateau Hachette to the 
French but to the Americans it is 
a tribute to Dr. Edward L. Trudeau 
of New York State. 

During the latter months of 1917 
the old chateau was put in repair 
under the supervision of Dr. G. of 
Baltimore. The details of his la¬ 
bors are his story and he will never 
tell. Without heat, or water, or 
comfort of any sort this young 
man came out from Paris every 
day, walking to and from the train, 
in the wet and the deadly cold of 
this section, all for France, to do 
his bit. Christmas day the Sana¬ 
torium Edward L. Trudeau opened 
its doors to the tubercular women 
of France. A few months later a 



88 


WAIFS OF WAR 


nearby pension or family hotel was 
put into condition to receive the 
children of the women installed in 
the sanatorium. 

Meanwhile Dr. G. was joined by 
his college mate Dr. M. of Califor¬ 
nia and it was my good fortune to 
be assigned to work with these two 
men. It was as if I were with the 
two best friends I have in the medi¬ 
cal profession in Syracuse. Dr. G. 
completed his work and came home 
the day of the armistice, and Dr. 
M. and I finished ours several 
months later. 

The Children’s Hospital was at 
first called the Preventorium. 
Gradually the sick were separated 
from the more robust and when the 
barracks were opened it became 
frankly a hospital while the bar¬ 
racks were known as the Preven- 



WAIFS OF WAR 89 


torium. The quarantine house re¬ 
ceived the children from Paris 
every two weeks. The hospital re¬ 
ceived them in emergency. 

The children came to us mainly 
from the dispensaries of Paris but 
often in the arms of their mothers 
who trudged wearily up the hill 
with their precious burden. The 
fathers were at the front or had al¬ 
ready made the supreme sacrifice 
that their children might be free. 
Primarily this pension had been 
opened for the children whose 
mothers were housed in the cha¬ 
teau, victims of tuberculosis, wid¬ 
ows of the war or refugees from its 
fury, but soon its scope was ex¬ 
tended to include other children 
who crowded the clinics opened 
for the thousands of refugees in 
Paris. A dispensary, however, was 



90 


WAIFS OF WAR 


early established in the chateau, 
the sanatorium itself, and the civil¬ 
ian population for miles around 
sought relief there for long-stand¬ 
ing ills. The children needing hos,- 
pital care were sent to us. 

The years of war had left its 
marks on the underfed, nervous, 
rachitic, ailing bits of humanity. 
Little Lucienne had traversed the 
trenches of Rheims, carrying her 
gas mask, and ready to lie down at 
the sound of approaching shells. 
This was difficult for her because 
of her elbow, tubercular and im¬ 
movable, and her school books and 
her lunch, for the children must go 
to school even in a town under shell 
fire. It was a weary journey for 
this terror-stricken child, whose 
mother had died during the war, 
whose father was a soldier, and 



WAIFS OF WAR 


9 i 


whose sister little older than her¬ 
self was her protector and faithful 
slave. She never smiled—not until 
she was put completely at rest in 
the open air, and then, too, her sis¬ 
ter had some respite. But when, 
at night, from Paris and its sur¬ 
rounding forts came the dread 
sounds of an air raid, these two 
children among the many others 
were the first to be sought for and 
comforted during the time of the 
raid. 

Then there was Maurice who 
often had disturbed sleep from his 
rachitic body and always heard the 
first sound of the alerte. The tiny 
babies woke for their bottles, those 
two or three years old slept 
through it all, and the majority of 
the larger children lay quietly in 
bed and watched and listened to 



92 


WAIFS OF WAR 


the tumult. Aside from the air 
raids the guns were often very near 
and often the search lights crossed 
the sky and our own airplanes 
passed overhead. There could be 
no light of course for the night 
nurse to minister to her little 
charges and the babies wanting to 
be fed cared nothing for danger or 
anything else except their usual re¬ 
past. After a time the din ceased 
and then was heard the reassuring 
notes of the bugle and the honk- 
honk which together made the ber- 
locque or “all’s well” and then the 
bells pealed out to tell the people of 
Paris that the enemy had done his 
work and escaped or had been pre¬ 
vented and driven away. They 
might, however, come again that 
night. All these sounds came to us 
clearly, seven miles from Paris. 



WAIFS OF WAR 


93 


Our children knew their signifi¬ 
cance from the experience of war. 

Dispensaries had been opened in 
Paris by Americans—the Ameri¬ 
can Red Cross and the Rockefeller 
Foundation—for the relief of the 
civilians long deprived of the serv¬ 
ice of their doctors who were with 
the army. From these were sent 
to us the children from an environ¬ 
ment of tuberculosis, especially, or 
from homes which might predis¬ 
pose to that disease. Many were 
already afifected or had conditions 
of eyes or ears or other organs plus 
the general malnutrition that goes 
with war. Their treatment was 
simple—first freed from insects by 
a bath and in clean clothes, they 
often slept the greater part of sev¬ 
eral days and with simple food and 



94 


WAIFS OF WAR 


open windows began almost imme¬ 
diately to improve. 

Many children came directly to 
the chateau not waiting for the dis¬ 
pensary routine and our medicin- 
chef—that is our chief doctor who 
being an American and very mod¬ 
est did not use that title—never re¬ 
fused to receive them. There was 
Maguire, twenty months old, so 
thin that we wanted to keep him 
out of sight. He had been living 
with his aunt while his mother 
worked and she did not know how 
to feed him nor could she afford to 
give him anything but the coarsest 
sort of food. He was pitiable. 
Someone sometime before had at¬ 
tempted to give him a bath and had 
set him in very hot water and the 
burn was not yet healed. He had 
learned patience in his four months’ 



WAIFS OF WAR 


95 


stay in a Paris hospital. He was 
discharged to make room for a 
more needy babe and at last ar¬ 
rived at our doors. His name was 
not “Maguire,” of course, but a 
typical French Rene. He won a 
place in all our hearts instantly and 
received the best possible care. 

One of the nurses was Irish of 
English blood but had the old time 
croon of the Emerald Isle as she 
washed the babies, and they under¬ 
stood and loved her and thrived un¬ 
der her hands. She called him “Ma¬ 
guire” and it needs reference to 
the records to recall his own name. 
He was dischargd to his soldier 
father and his happy mother in the 
very pink of condition. 

The chateau and its park date 
back to the eleventh century. One 
of its owners was Colbert and an- 



96 


WAIFS OF WAR 


other named D’Artagnan was 
probably not kin to the illustrious 
musketeer. Its last owner before 
the sale to the Department of the 
Seine was Hachette the well-known 
publisher of Paris who sold it for 
a site of a garden city. The park 
is considered one of the most beau¬ 
tiful in France with a terrace com¬ 
manding a wide sweep of country. 
Here are now erected ten barracks 
for 180 children who arrive for a 
three months’ visit in the country 
from their poor surroundings in 
Paris. They are in charge of a 
playground expert and her French 
aides. If sickness overtakes any of 
them they are transferred to the 
hospital. 

Troubadour came that way. 
Troubadour the winsome, born in 
the heart of the great city near the 



WAIFS OF WAR 


97 


great market place. Think of a 
name like that! A veritable trou¬ 
badour who will some day sing be¬ 
neath a lady’s window. Did he not 
instinctively lift and kiss the hand 
of a tiny lady of four years, his own 
age, who had been carried to his 
bedside for a change of air! She 
had been in a plaster cast for months 
outside the walls of Paris and left 
alone all day while her mother 
worked. Henri fluctuated from 
terrace to hospital as his condition 
indicated. His history card was 
brief—“a refugee all his life” of 
four years. His father was a pris¬ 
oner in Germany and his mother 
nearly unbalanced by trouble. 

Some of the children came from 
orphanages and schools in the vi¬ 
cinity when they were too ill to be 
cared for with the others. Many 



98 WAIFS OF WAR 


of the mothers died from influenza 
while their children were with us. 
Charles came with his mother 
along the winding road between 
the walls, up the hill from the rail¬ 
road. Walls, walls, walls, each one 
probably a barricade many times 
in the feudal days. There had been 
here somewhere a moat and a 
drawbridge and dungeons and the 
road twisted up the hill for greater 
defence to the chateau and the vil¬ 
lage at its gate. It had been called 
Plessis-Piquet until a few years 
ago—until the famous summer re¬ 
sort spread its prosaic name to this 
“fold” in the hills. Charles was 
born in Italy. His French father 
came at his country’s call and 
Charles became ill in France—so ill 
that he might easily have died from 
the walk uphill. Several months 



WAIFS OF WAR 


99 


in the hospital made no improve¬ 
ment and two days after the armis¬ 
tice his fight was over. 

Robert was a six months’ old 
refugee, one of seven living in one 
room nearby. Faulty diet brought 
him to us and the nurse did not ex¬ 
pect he would survive the bath. He 
became a husky youngster in the 
course of a few months—and a 
well-known Syracuse specialist op¬ 
erating on a colleague in the chateau 
did Robert the service of removing 
an obstructing mass from his 
throat. 

There was another Robert 
brought out from Paris by a nurse, 
desperately sick from the hour of 
his arrival, left in the open air day 
and night for a month and only 
now able to stand upon his de¬ 
formed legs. 



ioo WAIFS OF WAR 


Open windows in France! A 
draught! Open air treatment! So 
incredible such a thing that nurses 
from Paris came to see with their 
own eyes their own French chil¬ 
dren sleeping with windows wide 
open, sleeping in the open air in 
beds or chaises longues. All the 
children in the hospital slept or at 
least reposed from noon until two 
o’clock and in the open air when 
possible. The improvement was so 
decided that the French maids 
were more than willing to do the 
extra work of carrying beds and 
babes up and down and in and out. 

Armand, the blond, the beautiful 
curly head, took his midday nap 
early and woke when the others 
still slept. He was spoiled because 
he had been so very sick. His 
mother was a patient at the cha- 



WAIFS OF WAR ioi 


teau and one day Armand’s sister 
was born there and came to live 
with us and grow and grow to look 
like him. He had other sisters and 
brothers and they all went home 
together. 

The mother of Paul was a hand¬ 
some intelligent woman—they are 
all intelligent, the French. His 
father was a soldier-orderly some¬ 
where. Paul was nine months’ old 
and large as a child three months’ 
old. His mother did not tell us, but 
afterwards the neighbors did that 
he had cried for over three months. 
O Paul! How we tried to find out 
his ailment and cure him! We could 
not even soothe him as nearly 
every child can be soothed. When 
the air raid was on and the bits of 
shrapnel falling outside and he was 
out there under a sheltering tree we 



102 WAIFS OF WAR 


could not bring him in because he 
could not be hushed. He slept there 
and disturbed no one. Even when 
we gave up the case his mother left 
him with us and at last one of our 
nurses discovered the way to the 
little man’s heart was through the 
little man’s stomach. 

The children of France as com¬ 
pared with ours are much more 
docile because they lack the vigor 
perhaps. Their play is quieter, it 
is often said the children do not 
know how to play. They are joy¬ 
ous little tots like the whole nation, 
joyous. They seem years wiser 
than ours because they mature 
earlier. They are very much loved 
and petted but it does not spoil 
them as they are very gentle. They 
are plucky and not afraid although 
of course sometimes the “good 



WAIFS OF WAR 103 


man” or fairy might come in the 
window at night. And then the air 
raids—well, they would not be 
afraid but then. One night is was 
a thunderstorm that fooled them, 
but the lights were turned on and 
it was all right. During another of 
the rare storms they were diverted 
by learning the American game, 
“peas porridge hot, peas porridge 
cold,” until the storm was passed. 

The morning rounds was a game 
of hide-and-seek, hiding under the 
bed clothes and bobbing up to cry 
“a moi,” do it again, of the child 
the world over. The majority of 
them were too young for intelligi¬ 
ble language and many had their 
own clipped speech. Roland, seven 
years old, lived in a land of dreams, 
joined parts of two words and had 
a perfectly good one for his own 



104 WAIFS OF WAR 


use. He had a huge doll to which 
he confided his hopes that mamma 
would take him home Sunday— 
while mamma was begging us to 
keep him a little while longer. Ga- 
brielle, four years, had a vocabu¬ 
lary to which our French nurse 
shut her ears and which of course 
was unintelligible to the unini¬ 
tiated. Just before supper all 
the younger kiddies had an un¬ 
mistakable language especially 
if no maid was in the ward. 
They just looked up to the 
ceiling and gently bawled with 
pure “ennui.” There is no other 
word. It is the reason for many 
things in France. A child sends 
word home that he has “ennui” and 
everything gives way before it. 
The child must go home because it 
has “ennui.” It is the “cafard” of 



WAIFS OF WAR 105 


the soldier who wears a charm 
against its influence. 

Juliette’s influence in the ward 
was unseen, unheard, but unmis¬ 
takable. Both parents dead of 
tuberculosis, her only relative, her 
grandmother, who was ill and not 
able to visit her, she herself very ill 
at times, she seemed to control the 
others and teach them many little 
things. She was evacuated when 
the American Red Cross closed its 
activities in this branch of work. 

Suzanne was her neighbor and 
friend. She had come from an or¬ 
phanage and her mother was dead 
recently of the white plague. No¬ 
body liked Lydie and nobody could 
tell why. Everybody liked Desire. 
He was truly desired, little two- 
year-old. Marcel, like most of the 
children, was reared by a nurse in 



io6 WAIFS OF WAR 


the country and thus had two 
mothers or none, depending on the 
character of each. Marie Louise 
and Odette, tiny mites, were un¬ 
claimed by their relatives and will 
be reared by the government with 
the other thousands of war or¬ 
phans, by France that looks upon 
them as her most valued posses¬ 
sion, willing to do everything possi¬ 
ble for their material good, unwill¬ 
ing to surrender them to better en¬ 
vironment which might rob them 
of their birthright, unwilling that 
they should be anything less than 
the greatest citizens of the repub¬ 
lic, heirs of the Liberty, Fraternity, 
Equality which is France. 

ARMISTICE DAY 

Newspaper enterprise in France 
has not reached the high degree to 



ARMISTICE 


107 


which we are accustomed. Cer¬ 
tainly, in the allied papers of Paris 
there was nothing to prepare us for 
the actual signing of the Armistice, 
much less to give us a false report 
of it four days in advance. How¬ 
ever, at eleven o’clock on Novem¬ 
ber eleven, we heard the bells of 
the city peal out their joyous notes, 
we knew the vague rumor had be¬ 
come a verity. 

Our whole household rejoiced in 
song and dance and tears. The 
children shouted and raced through 
the halls, climbed upon the tables 
to dance in joy for what they were 
too young to understand. National 
hymns were sung in turn, the 
French personnel yielding the hon¬ 
ors to us who made victory possi¬ 
ble, and we rejoicing with them 
who had so long borne the burden 



io8 WAIFS OF WAR 


of war. A general holiday was de¬ 
clared for them while the Ameri¬ 
cans took upon themselves the dou¬ 
ble duties in service to the children. 

Great writers have described 
Paris in the grip of various emo¬ 
tions and doubtless this day will 
have its word painters. The peo¬ 
ple were there in great crowds 
marching through the streets or 
racing along in camions or autos, 
but those with whom they would 
have rejoiced the most were far 
away in the trenches or in their 
graves. There was scarcely any 
music. The students, with whom 
one associates Paris demonstrative, 
had no part in this historic pageant, 
spontaneous, international, hetero¬ 
geneous. They were at the front. 
Strangers in khaki, British or 
American, and men beyond mili- 



ARMISTICE 


109 


tary age or usefulness made up the 
minority of the crowd. It is safe 
to assert that no American in uni¬ 
form walked the street unkissed on 
that joyful day. 

In Place de la Concorde, one of 
our soldiers was haranguing the 
crowd in the soldier-French and 
English from the top of a taxicab. 
Nearby were groups of our boys 
and soon eight of them and myself 
were joining hands and circling 
round singing “Hail! Hail! The 
gang’s all here!” Immediately we 
were surrounded and for an hour 
the boys sang for the crowd. They 
had been singing all the afternoon. 
At last we broke away and I 
begged them to let me contribute 
to the jubilation by standing treat. 
They finally consented and gal¬ 
lantly urged me to go with them 



IIO 


WAIFS OF WAR 


in search of something to eat—a 
difficult quest at that time. In¬ 
stead, I accepted their escort as far 
as my train. Never did I meet a 
soldier boy of ours over there with¬ 
out a thrill of pleasure and pride 
and patriotism; never without the 
thought that our country would al¬ 
ways be mindful of his service. 

With Armistice everything 
changed. Hope of family reunion 
dawned among the French, home 
called to Americans, and hitherto 
absorbing tasks dwindled to sine¬ 
cures. 

CANTEENS 

Without the unstinted service 
of the American Red Cross in a 
dozen canteens in Paris I do not 
know what would have become of 
our thousands of soldiers looking 
for something to eat. Food was 



canteens 


III 


scarce in the restaurants, prices 
high, and expression difficult. In 
the canteens, for fifteen cents, the 
hungriest boy could be satisfied. 
There was always an abundance 
of bread and coffee and meat and 
vegetables and dessert and there 
were tables to sit at. There were 
tobacco and writing material and 
music and a friendly word from 
one’s own countrywoman. It 
might happen that circumstances 
sometimes left the boy without 
even the fifteen cents, but no one 
was the wiser. 

After Armistice, when many of 
our soldiers became students in the 
University and elsewhere, the Red 
Cross opened a clubhouse for them 
in an interesting and comfortable 
building on the boulevard Mont¬ 
parnasse. The house-warming was 



112 WAIFS OF WAR 


marred only by the scarcity of 
dancing partners for the boys. The 
walled-in garden had an added in¬ 
terest in that it was said to cover 
part of the area of the catacombs, 
rarely associated with this city. 

Three of the soldier-students 
rented an apartment high up in a 
building close to the clubhouse in 
order to enjoy the comforts of 
home including home cooking 
in which one of them claimed 
and d e mo nstrated his skill. 
They were studying wireless and 
were eager to have me see the wiz¬ 
ardry of their classroom. After¬ 
wards we visited the studios near¬ 
by, chatted with the young artists 
and gazed upon the doubtful beau¬ 
ties of the nudes. Two young 
models in street attire with whom 
we spoke, invited us to return at 



IN AN AIRPLANE 113 


their hour of posing. In one of the 
studios we met the sister of an 
American poet and soldier who 
died for France and is on their 
honor roll of dead writers. 

IN AN AIRPLANE 

An American doctor of our staff 
invited me to motor with him to 
Versailles for luncheon with some 
Americans long resident in France. 
He said he had something to tell 
me which could not be confided un¬ 
til we were on our way. It was to 
the effect that another and not I 
was the invited one, a charming 
woman physician of our staff who 
had somehow failed him in this en¬ 
gagement. She was born in France 
of Russian parentage, her father 
high in affairs of state, recently de¬ 
ceased, her mother a physician in 



114 WAIFS OF WAR 

her country. However, as the re¬ 
sponsibility for the social event 
was not mine, I stood pat, and our 
hostess charmingly assured us that 
while regretting the absent one, 
none could be as welcome as a com¬ 
patriot. This after half a century 
of expatriation. 

On our way home we passed sev¬ 
eral aerodromes and at last picked 
up courage to enter. We did not 
know that it was a famous field. 
The two young officers in charge 
were aces, with the clear cut fea¬ 
tures and classic coldness that 
seem to belong to their class. 
They declared we were very wel¬ 
come, that all Americans were al¬ 
ways at home with them. One had 
been a prisoner, having fallen 
within the German lines in the sec¬ 
ond year of the war. He had only 



CHRISTMAS 


ii5 

recently been released and was 
just now recovering from influenza. 
The other had been a pupil of the 
Wright Brothers. They asked us 
if we wanted to go up and that was 
just what we did want. I went 
first, climbing between the wires 
and having my feet guided to the 
proper places, finally reaching the 
seat and strapping myself in. 
Away we went, up into the air, free 
from terrestial jolts, swaying in 
our flight and then skimming home 
like a bird, to give my place to the 
doctor. 

CHRISTMAS IN THE CHIL¬ 
DREN’S HOSPITAL 

For four years there had been 
no Christmas joy in France. Noel, 
Noel was a sad refrain. We de¬ 
termined to have an American 



n6 WAIFS OF WAR 


Christmas celebration for our 
sixty-five frail little children. 
Forty of them had been born 
during the war and all had 
been afflicted by it. Their 
Christmas needs could be easily 
met. The American Red Cross 
supplied all their wants even to 
toys, a necessary part of the treat¬ 
ment of a child in hospital. There 
was a closet in the wall from which 
came toys at need to make little 
folks happy and there was an all¬ 
year-round Santa Claus in the cha¬ 
teau nearby which was now a hos¬ 
pital where our children’s mammas 
were sick too. But on Armistice 
Day this good Santa sailed for 
America to see his own little child 
and so we must try to do the best 
we could without him. 



CHRISTMAS 


117 

First, there must be a Christmas 
tree. There it grew right out in 
the park but the park belonged to 
the government which had bought 
it from M. Hachette for a million 
and a half francs. It was to be¬ 
come a garden city, but the war 
came on and stopped the enterprise 
and it was loaned to the American 
Red Cross, with the farms and cha¬ 
teau and other buildings that be¬ 
longed to it. It was in charge of a 
man who had lived here a long time 
and we were not a bit afraid to ask 
him for a tree, because he was very 
kind and very handsome too, as he 
must be to wear the cap of the 
“Blue Devils” with whom he had 
served in the past. He dug up a 
tree just tall enough for the dining 
room and planted it in a box of 
earth and when it had finished its 



n8 WAIFS OF WAR 


Christmas service he returned it to 
the ground. And heaps of holly he 
gave us for immense festoons, and 
then he snared a huge nest of mis¬ 
tletoe on a high tree and cut it 
down for us and hung it over the 
door with a big rosette of the tri¬ 
color ribbon. 

Toys and bonbons were very ex¬ 
pensive as was everything else, but 
we knew that somehow we would 
have money to buy them because 
the children in the barracks on the 
terrace had received from a lady 
five hundred francs. This fairy 
godmother was once upon a time a 
little American girl and then she 
went to France to live. We went 
to our headquarters in Paris and 
received one hundred and twenty 
francs because there were many 
other children in hospitals who 



CHRISTMAS 119 

needed Christmas cheer, too, and 
we must divide the supply. Then 
there came along a fair young girl 
who had been an aide up at Beau¬ 
vais, and for our children she gave 
us four hundred francs out of her 
own pocket. There was in the same 
building a well-known Syracuse 
physician and his office staff 
bought and dressed dolls and gave 
them to us. And our French friends 
in our Red Cross selected toys they 
knew would delight French chil¬ 
dren and sent them to us with an 
invitation to draw upon them to 
the extent of a few hundred francs. 
And so we had more than enough 
for all our children. 

Our great big dentist, draped in 
red blankets and bearded with cot¬ 
ton and gauze was Santa Claus. 



120 WAIFS OF WAR 


Every baby whose scant hairs or 
whose baldness could hold a gay 
ribbon for five minutes at a time 
was adorned and carried, one on 
each arm of an adoring maid, to 
the Christmas tree. Every child 
received a doll, boys and girls, for 
boys play with dolls over there. 
Books and soldiers and glass beads 
and chocolate and puzzles and loto 
games and balls and animals on 
wheels and crayons, all were there 
to delight the hearts of these gen¬ 
tle little tots. They like crayons 
and blank books to draw and are 
apt in the art. The children at the 
terrace had donated to ours, for 
Christmas, artistic scrapbooks 
which they had made and they 
passed from hand to hand with 
much appreciation. 



CHRISTMAS 


121 


All Christmas day the older chil¬ 
dren played downstairs, released 
from the usual two hours’ repose 
after midday—a beneficial meas¬ 
ure for these frail children, but the 
despair of those charged to enforce 
it. The tots of two or three years 
of age nodded at the accustomed 
hour and were carried off to bed 
while the babies demanded their 
bottles regardless of all the tinsel 
and baubles in the world. 

The feeling among the Ameri¬ 
cans on this day, as well as on 
Armistice was one of self-renun¬ 
ciation, the desire to serve and give 
pleasure rather than to enjoy and 
receive. Among us there was lit¬ 
tle of the spirit and greetings of our 
own home land, and yet there was 
no discontent or morbid humor. We 
feasted on turkey and our econome, 



122 WAIFS OF WAR 


or steward, who had charge of sup¬ 
plies, sent to our table two bottles 
of champagne, a special attention 
he had also shown us on our own 
peculiar holiday, Thanksgiving. 

When the Christmas tree was dis¬ 
mantled and all the babes were in 
bed, there was rest for those who 
had spent Christmas Eve in Paris 
at midnight Mass in Notre Dame or 
the Madeleine with the thousands 
of worshippers of all creeds. 

To me, at midnight, came the 
melody of wonderful bells in the 
clear cold air, pealing forth the joy 
of the Christ born after their dread¬ 
ful silence in the years of war. 

THE PROFESSOR 

We were often fellow-travelers 
to Paris with the same destination, 
the Sorbonne, where he had been a 



THE PROFESSOR 123 


student. He sometimes carried a 
New York paper but it did not oc¬ 
cur to me that he might speak our 
language. Our real friendship be¬ 
gan with the laugh on me. My boots 
were in bad condition having been 
repaired on the Avenue de L’Opera 
with some substitute for leather so 
my thoughts turned to footwear 
and comparisons. This handsome 
young officer’s boots were of the 
kind I wanted and so I asked him 
where he had bought them. With 
a smile that was almost a trium¬ 
phant whoop he told me. In Amer¬ 
ica of course where he had been in¬ 
structor for two years at Camp 
Travis. 

One Sunday afternoon with 
snow and fog requiring my rain 
coat and rubber boots, I left the 
train at the side of this faultlessly 



124 WAIFS OF WAR 


attired young man. He had told 
me he was going to wander around 
on the lie de Saint Louis. I gave 
him every opportunity to go alone 
but he kept at my side for a consid¬ 
erable distance and we somehow 
agreed that we were going to¬ 
gether. He knew the way to bits 
of third century Paris. We circled 
close to Notre Dame only to find 
the further gate locked and rather 
than retrace our steps he followed 
me as I climbed over, below the 
mocking faces of the hundreds of 
weird sculptured creatures that 
watch above. We went as far as 
Place des Vosges where Victor 
Hugo once lived, passing on our 
way the home of Madame de Sev- 
igne. Many other places of inter¬ 
est were pointed out by my able 
guide—dim old courts, and gloomy 



LA SORBONNE 125 


archways, narrow winding streets 
below ancient towers of past splen¬ 
dor, threatening doorways and 
menacing balconies, all teeming 
with historic events. 

During our ramble, though we 
spoke French I learned that my 
companion was a professor of Eng¬ 
lish in one of the large cities of 
France. He was also a writer and 
compiler of books for students of 
English. He was looking to a 
speedy release from military duties 
to return home to his wife and chil¬ 
dren and to resume teaching. 

LA SORBONNE 

.Mardi gras in the Quartier Lat¬ 
in! The traditional celebration of 
centuries, the right of students to 
make merry, easily survive a world 
war. Two days’ vacation before 



126 WAIFS OF WAR 


Careme culminates in Mardi gras 
when they swarm in Place de la 
Sorbonne and overflow the Boule¬ 
vard St. Michel from the Seine to 
the Luxembourg Gardens. Orators 
mount the pedestal of the group in 
the Place and harangue the crowd 
of youth of both sexes in fantastic 
attire, who show appreciation of 
their eloquence by hauling them 
down to earth. Processions form 
and disband in a dozen different 
places. Huge, gaily-colored neckties 
stream out in the breeze. All sorts 
of flags and banners are unfurled. 
Shades of Tammany! A monstrous 
tiger is borne aloft. From its huge 
mouth hangs a Prussian officer 
seized by the waist, spiked helmet 
and glistening boots dangling on 
either side. “Le Tigre” is devour¬ 
ing the Kaiser. “Le Tigre” is the 



LA SORBONNE 


127 


idol of the students. When an at¬ 
tempt was made on his life, they 
were aroused and when the danger 
was past they held meetings and 
with wild cheers adopted resolu¬ 
tions to send to their beloved Clem- 
enceau. 

The Chapel of the Sorbonne 
faces the Place and the Boulevard. 
Its transept shelters the tomb of 
Richelieu, its founder. An artistic 
facade, splendid as a chief portal, 
forms one side of the court of the 
Sorbonne, and is reached by a wide 
stairway between the bronze fig¬ 
ures of Pasteur and Victor Hugo. 

There is something very attrac¬ 
tive in this court to the sightseer 
who wanders in through the arch¬ 
way—the paintings of the arcade, 
the stone benches beneath, the 
wings where are the great library, 



128 WAIFS OF WAR 


the amphitheatres and class¬ 
rooms ; the inscriptions over the 
doors especially that of Robert de 
Sorbon, founder of the University 
in 1253. 

Though the name Sorbonne is 
synonymous with University of 
Paris it seems popularly to be ap¬ 
plied only to the Faculty of Let¬ 
ters. Its great amphitheatre is a 
forum for the whole world as well 
as the theatre of university activi¬ 
ties. It was here that President 
Wilson received the highest hon¬ 
ors of the Sorbonne. It was here 
that the Society of Men of Letters 
rendered homage to the writers 
who died for their country. The 
audience represented the whole 
world, with the President of the 
Republic, General Joffre, and the 
beautiful Queen of Roumania 



LA SORBONNE 


129 


among the guests. Four hundred 
and fifty writers of military age, 
already recognized in the literary 
world, dead on the field of honor, 
were commemorated too in the 
Synagogue and Temple; in Notre 
Dame when the great towers 
awoke and pealed over Paris the 
deep tones of the bourdon and the 
carol of the lesser bells; in the Pan¬ 
theon by the civic tribute—in that 
great temple dedicated: Aux 
Grands Hommes La Patrie Recon- 
naissante. 

Throughout the Sorbonne, Art is 
generous. The marble corridors 
have beautiful paintings of historic 
places — Carcassone, Alhambra, 
Place des Vosges. The amphithea¬ 
tres and halls are relieved of drear¬ 
iness by wonderful artistic themes, 
of Apollo, of the Muses, of human 



1 3 o WAIFS OF WAR 


progress. The antechamber of the 
amphitheatre, the Salle des Con¬ 
ferences, where the distinguished 
guests assemble, is an artistic gem. 
Here as everywhere in Paris is pro¬ 
duced the impression that the 
French know how to do things 
well. 

Thousands of soldiers from the 
ends of the earth—New Zealand, 
Australia, India, Canada, United 
States—came here to see this an¬ 
cient seat of learning, guided by 
lovers of the Quartier Latin in the 
various organizations allied with 
the armies. Beneath their feet in 
the court is the outline in contrast¬ 
ing stone of some former amphi¬ 
theatre, just as in the Place of the 
Bastille the ancient prison is traced 
on the street, sidewalk and even 
through the present buildings. 



LA SORBONNE 131 

From the Court, busy students 
pass to the library and the amphi¬ 
theatres named for great men— 
Descartes, Turgot, Richelieu, Gui¬ 
zot—through a long wide marble 
hall which becomes a promenade 
between classes. Up and down, 
arm-in-arm friends walk and talk 
and so this has borrowed the name 
of a similar hall in the Palace of 
Justice where clients awaiting the 
law’s delay pace up and down, up 
and down, in the Hall of Lost Foot¬ 
steps, La Salle des Pas Perdus. 

More wonderful than the home 
of the University are the teachers 
and the courses offered to the stu¬ 
dent and the public. The free 
courses are in all departments and 
on all subjects of human interest 
from aviation to vegetable physiol¬ 
ogy. The lecturers have world-wide 



132 WAIFS OF WAR 


renown. Some of them are Amer¬ 
icans. 

The University and other insti¬ 
tutions of learning in Paris pre¬ 
pared additional courses for the fif¬ 
teen hundred soldiers of our army 
who were given this opportunity 
for study. 

In these halls America seems 
very remote, and remote places 
very near—Russia, Serbia, Moroc¬ 
co, Madagascar. The audiences 
are remarkable—other teachers, 
business and professional men, offi¬ 
cers, statesmen, who leave their 
work in the daytime to hear the 
masters speak, for here academic 
study aids the solution of all social 
problems. 

Right on the minute the speaker 
is ushered in by the beadle. On his 
desk have already been placed a 



LA SORBONNE 


133 


pitcher of water, a glass with a 
lump of sugar and a spoon. Sugar 
was scarce but was daily supplied 
though rarely used to moisten the 
lips of the speaker. Charts, stere- 
opticon, graphophone or whatever 
appliance is required to elucidate, 
is at hand and in working order. 

It goes without saying that the 
professors of the Sorbonne are 
among the most distinguished men 
in France, that is to say, in the 
world. They have the ease of long 
tenure of honor. They are elegant, 
masterly, magnetic. Of course 
their diction is perfect, their enun¬ 
ciation clear cut, their discourse 
logical, for they are teachers here 
in the very home of the arbiter of 
these things, the Academie Fran- 


caise. 



134 WAIFS OF WAR 


Our American soldiers who 
elected to follow the courses of¬ 
fered by the great institutions of 
learning in France found here in 
the Sorbonne these wonderful 
teachers. With a knowledge of 
French such as is acquired at home 
they must needs be content at first 
to understand only the spoken 
word. Soon all unconsciously they 
found themselves grasping whole 
sentences, then the theme, and 
then gradually carried along into 
realms of politics, philosophy, his¬ 
tory, literary and dramatic criti¬ 
cism by the power of these masters 
to impart knowledge. 

Naturally one of the most popu¬ 
lar courses of lectures for our boys, 
on a familiar subject and so easily 
followed was that of Monsieur Ces- 
tre on the United States, her liter- 



LA SORBONNE 


135 


ature and civilization. He spoke 
of events about the time of our en¬ 
trance into the war. With the 
psychological power of the French 
he held the mirror up to us and 
traced our national reactions as we 
ourselves could not. He had been 
professor at Harvard and had 
known there some of our now illus¬ 
trious dead. One day he said: “The 
Americans have not forgotten La 
Fayette nor will France ever for¬ 
get her debt to America.” 

Monsieur Brunot gave his lec¬ 
tures in his classroom called Ar¬ 
chives de la Parole. A student is 
soon convinced that in this room 
the word is safe and the room well 
named. It is obviously impossible 
for the stranger here to do justice 
to these teachers, to record their 
achievements, or to know the ex- 



136 WAIFS OF WAR 


tent of their influence. Monsieur 
Brunot is the author of a History 
of the French Language. It is evi¬ 
dent that he loves his mother 
tongue, that its words are jealously 
cherished by him, and that he is 
pledged to protect it from corrup¬ 
tion. He knows the life history of 
a word, how it was born into the 
language, its origin plebian or pa¬ 
trician, its sponsors the drama or 
historic document. The adven¬ 
tures of a word become an excur¬ 
sion into history and politics and 
art and life here in France where a 
word crystalizes the clash of castes, 
the diplomacy of statesmen, the 
trend of opinion, the intensity of 
nationalism. War lays its burden 
on language, too, and the guard¬ 
ians of the word are alert for its 
defense and its reconstruction and 



LA SORBONNE 


137 


its purification. The pupils of Mon¬ 
sieur Brunot are the future teach¬ 
ers of the language. There is no 
divided attention when he speaks. 
The compelling interest of the bio¬ 
graphy of a word would be incred¬ 
ible were it not a recurrent experi¬ 
ence. 

The lectures on the romantic 
drama by Monsieur Reynier are a 
continuous delight because he is 
delightful. With brief notes and 
readings he summons the authors 
to behold their own portraits and 
enjoy their own humor. No dra¬ 
matist could be more interesting 
than this Sorbonne professor who 
interprets him and his works with 
sparkling intelligence and keen ap¬ 
preciation. One after the other 
they pass in review. They are 
startlingly near. They lived in this 



138 WAIFS OF WAR 


very neighborhood, studied in 
these very halls, reveled in the 
nearby restaurants. Their dramas 
had their premiere down the street 
at the Odeon. The scenes are in 
the palaces and gardens of this vi¬ 
cinity. Their characters like them¬ 
selves are French — kings and 
courtiers, cardinals and patriots, 
grand dames and musketeers, he¬ 
roes and villians, victors and vic¬ 
tims. Their prototypes saunter in 
the boulevard. Quasimodo still, 
in ecstasy, swings from the great 
bell of Notre Dame, Tean Valjean 
haunts the river bank, and D’Ar- 
tagnan himself back from the 
trenches, “on permission” goes his 
conquering way in the Gardens of 
the Luxembourg. The authors are 
intensely French, true to the genius 
of the race, true to its virtues and 



LA SORBONNE 


139 


its vices. Were they not, they 
would not be received, for, in the 
whole realm of creative power, ap¬ 
parently unlimited, there seem to 
be definite things which are 
adopted or rejected because they 
are or are not French. So they 
preserve their nationalism and in 
the same way analyze and classify 
other nations with a penetration 
and a fidelity that make them the 
master diplomats of the world. 

The lectures on Alfred de Mus¬ 
set drew a crowd that filled the 
amphitheatre to overflowing long 
before the hour. The splendid 
voice and histrionic power of Mon¬ 
sieur Michaut swayed his audience 
to the various emotions of the au¬ 
thor. So too, the mellow tones of 
Monsieur Hum ant interpreting 
Tchekof and his Russian types de- 



140 WAIFS OF WAR 


lighted and thrilled his auditors. 
In both of these courses of lectures 
there were surprises in the frank 
discussion of subjects which more 
puritanical people demand shall be 
merely mentioned or completely 
ignored. The eloquent lament of a 
lover whose mistress has deserted 
him, the reproaches of a wife who 
discovers the intrigue of her hus¬ 
band, the operation of the bodily 
functions, the intimacy of family 
life, in short, just as the French 
analyse, interpret, classify, probe 
and philosophize in the metaphysi¬ 
cal, they portray, record, discuss, 
disclose and enact in the physical. 
They are natural, free, self-indul¬ 
gent, joyous. That which is their 
life their writers may reflect and 
their teachers may interpret. 



LA SORBONNE 141 

In all the other Faculties of the 
University — Medicine, Law, 
Science; in the schools—Pharmacy, 
Chartes, Oriental Languages; in 
the College of France, in Beaux- 
Arts, in Museums there is the same 
wide and rich field for study as in 
the Sorbonne. France does not 
advertise her advantages to attract 
students. On their part, they are 
deterred by idle reports of the diffi¬ 
culty of acquiring the language. 

Our American soldiers studying 
in Paris were appreciative of the 
opportunities. They tried to profit 
by them but they had not known 
how lonesome they were to be sep¬ 
arated from their outfits and their 
buddies and carrying always in 
their hearts and on their lips the 
one thought—they wanted to go 
home. 



142 WAIFS OF WAR 


RHEIMS 

In the dark and cold and snow of 
a morning in February, I took my 
solitary way to the depot a mile 
distant, and on to Paris for the 
early and only train to Rheims. 

Not a house in this beautiful city 
had escaped damage. It would 
seem to require the labor of thou¬ 
sands of masons for countless 
years for restoration. 

We visited the Hindenburg line 
and the trenches and the deep 
chambers of the dugouts, treading 
carefully among the still potent in¬ 
struments of war. 

In the ruined city, some of the 
famous champagne cellars were in¬ 
tact—miles of corridors among 
thousands and thousands of bottled 
vintage. In the early days of the 



LES REGIONS LIBEREES 143 


war the enemy had held the city, 
doing no damage to what they con¬ 
fidently expected to possess. 

LES REGIONS LIBEREES 
(Through the Devastated Regions) 

We started out in a French gov¬ 
ernment car with a French officer 
giving us his final instructions 
from the curb. The auto, dark blue 
in color, bore the letters R. L., for 
service in the regions liberated, and 
passed without challenge. We 
were bound for a remote village in 
the Ardennes which had been 
adopted for reconstruction by an 
American magazine whose repre¬ 
sentative had been endorsed and 
favored by the French government 
in her effort to see for herself the 
foster-child of her journal. She 
was of course an American with 



144 WAIFS OF WAR 


unbounded energy, a well-known 
writer for many years, a school¬ 
mate of mine in the long ago and 
now met by chance in Paris. In 
her previous visits here in her liter¬ 
ary interests, she had need of a 
photographer whom she found 
through London recommendations 
and whose acquaintance she was 
fortunate enough to renew on this 
occasion and engaged to accom¬ 
pany her to the adopted village, or 
rather, twin villages. He was an 
Irishman by birth and had been in 
every corner of the British empire 
with his camera. He had the mel¬ 
low voice and humor of his native 
land, and the easy-going tempera¬ 
ment of the cosmopolite—a check 
to impatience yet at need inspiring 
confidence in his masculine effici¬ 


ency. 



R. L. 


145 


The secretary was a young 
French girl who spoke English and 
was a stenographer and could be 
interpreter. She was very pretty 
with a sweet voice and delightful 
accent. The chauffeur was a Bel¬ 
gian. He had been gassed and 
coughed much. He had no over¬ 
shoes or gloves as no attention had 
been given to his equipment until 
we were well on our way and the 
sun was overclouded. 

A Belgian, an Irishman, a 
Frenchwoman and two American 
women in a French government 
car bowled along at sixty or more 
miles an hour north from Paris. At 
Meaux we naturally thought of our 
countrywoman, the author, and 
would have found our way to her 
had time permitted. We stopped 
at Chateau Thierry immortalized 



146 WAIFS OF WAR 


by our own soldiers. At Epernay 
we saw many of our boys and in 
the American Red Cross canteen 
met a well-known American wom¬ 
en who wore the croix de guerre. 
Naturally we Americans hailed 
every American soldier we met, 
much to their surprise, for in our 
enthusiasm we always forgot that 
they could not recognize us in our 
French car, three in civilian clothes, 
one in the horizon blue of the 
American working for the French, 
and myself alone in khaki which 
might be English and was often so 
mistaken to my great discontent, 
no stronger feeling being permitted 
among the allies. When, however, 
we were at last recognized our wel¬ 
come was unmistakable and our 
boys formed our escort from place 
to place. We were even privileged 



ST. MENEHOULD 147 


to peep into one of their kitchens 
where doughnuts were shaped with 
an empty shell and the hole with a 
smaller brass shell. 

From Epernay our journey was 
rapid and we stopped only occa¬ 
sionally to stretch our legs, once 
at a little house where two old 
ladies related to us their war ex¬ 
periences when their house was 
headquarters for their own army. 
A few children came out to see us. 
Their shoes were fashioned from 
bits of uniforms, soles and all, and 
there was only one pair of wooden 
shoes. 

In the evening we arrived at St. 
Menehould, a saint not familiar in 
our calendar. It was not yet dark 
but a wet snow began to fall and 
it was cold March. Here too, ut¬ 
terly unconscious of our own ap- 



148 WAIFS OF WAR 


pearance, we felt the aloofness of 
our own few soldiers until we had 
approached them and made our 
wants known. They told us we 
had arrived at the end of the world 
as far as comfort or even shelter 
was concerned and that we should 
lose no time in securing accommo¬ 
dations for the night at the hotel. 
We were on the edge of the Ar- 
gonne Forest and beyond there was 
only ruin and desolation except for 
military posts which we could not 
reach at night. 

St. Menehould is picturesque but 
all impressions were lost in the 
overpowering sensation of cold. 
The only rooms available were in 
the rear of the hotel, without heat 
and light except of a candle. The 
linen sheets had no comfort for our 
bodies which could not be warm 




ST. MENEHOULD 149 


even with most of our clothes on 
and all the auto robes. A few 
hours sleep after a scanty sup¬ 
per, and the murky rainy dawn 
brought us to the kitchen fire 
for a scant breakfast. When 
we were ready to go and had 
heaped our robes on the table of 
what had been the cafe, our chauf¬ 
feur and car had disappeared. We 
soon found him up the street visit¬ 
ing while the car stood open to the 
rain and his own coat spread out 
to catch its share. Then it was 
necessary to go somewhere to get 
an order to be permitted to buy 
gasoline and then a woman had to 
go with us to get it. After a cou¬ 
ple of hours’ delay we were again 
on our way, crossing the Argonne 
Forest, through the ruins of Cler¬ 
mont where we missed our turning 



i5o WAIFS OF WAR 


and kept on the wrong road for a 
considerable distance, to retrace 
and turn north. 

All was ruin. The roads were 
cleared and the heaps of materials 
on either side finally forced the 
mind to realize that these shape¬ 
less masses had once been villages. 
It was appalling in its utter desola¬ 
tion. So for the rest of the journey 
it was miles and miles of trenches 
and barbed wire, of dugouts and 
barricades, of ammunition and 
arms, of shattered trees and 
wasted fields, and the wooden 
crosses grouped or scattered here 
and there on the wayside. No liv¬ 
ing thing moved here in the waste 
for miles and miles and miles. 

Rain and snow had halted the re¬ 
pair of roads. Familiar signs in 
English, or rather, in American be- 



VARENNES 


151 

gan to appear, about keeping to the 
right, traveling single file, and the 
emphasis that this means you 
which only a Yankee would post 
on the roads of France. Ruins 
were so common that we would 
easily have passed Varennes with¬ 
out suspecting the presence of the 
hospitable company of engineers 
camped here engaged in road re¬ 
pair, did we not see a soldier carry¬ 
ing a pail of water crossing the 
road. The rain was coming down 
in torrents as we reached this 
haven just in time for dinner in a 
warm room with corn bread and 
other real food steaming hot, and 
the warmest kind of welcome. 

Since they were engineers it is 
of course expected that they knew 
how to make themselves comfort¬ 
able. They were in barracks in 



152 WAIFS OF WAR 


the territory held by the Germans 
for four years. In spite of the rain 
we descended into caverns which 
had held their guns and com¬ 
manded the approaches. A com¬ 
plete system of lighting had been 
found by the engineers and trans¬ 
ferred to their barracks. Their 
heating was by stoves made from 
ammunition containers of various 
sorts and scarcely an object in the 
whole camp was anything but an 
adaptation of salvaged material 
from the enemy’s trenches. The 
piano, of course, had always been a 
piano. 

There were over two hundred 
men in this camp and this day was 
the first anniversary of their or¬ 
ganization and they were prepar¬ 
ing for a celebration that night. 
They had invited some young 



VARENNES 


153 


ladies and had to arrange for their 
sleeping quarters as they must of 
necessity come from afar. The 
boys had vacated the dormitory 
and were joyously spreading their 
own beds in the kitchen. After¬ 
wards we met the party of the sec¬ 
ond part, twenty canteen workers, 
who had been safely transported 
over the perilous roads to help cele¬ 
brate the anniversary. 

The boys had many valuable 
souvenirs of the enemy as well as 
of the shattered dwellings in the 
neighborhood to make their habi¬ 
tation comfortable. By a curious 
chance they had a photograph 
from an airplane of the very vil¬ 
lage to which we were traveling. 

We were reluctant to leave this 
cheery hospitable company and 
promised a return call but that was 



154 WAIFS OF WAR 


not to be. They gave us helpful in¬ 
structions so that we journeyed to 
our destination without further er¬ 
ror. At Romagne we passed a Y. 
M. C. A. hut without stopping but 
the fleeting glimpse was to serve 
us well that night. On a hill top in 
the distance was an encampment 
of which we were to learn more. 
We saw negro troops at work 
along the road and inquired of 
their officers the nature of their 
work. They were disinterring the 
bodies of our soldiers in their scat¬ 
tered graves to remove them to the 
great cemetery at Romagne, where 
twenty-four thousand will sleep 
and be the shrine of holy pilgrim¬ 
ages for centuries to come. 

From here our road was in bad 
repair and we thought of our re¬ 
turn perhaps at night through the 



LANDRES 


155 


skidding and pitching dangers. 
But we zig-zagged on and at last 
had a view of the ruined village, 
our destination, Landres - St. 
Georges. Our leader interviewed 
the mayor, the few old people who 
remained through all the cross fire 
of four years, and those who had 
returned home, in all twenty-five 
people of a population of four hun¬ 
dred. They were on rations sup¬ 
plied by the government every two 
weeks at a station five miles away. 
One young lieutenant was in charge 
here to look after explosive mater¬ 
ial lying around. Not a wall was 
safe nor a roof whole. The mayor’s 
house was covered with American 
army waterproof, and his body 
clothed with parts of our uniforms. 

When the Germans left the vil¬ 
lage they staved in the reservoir 



156 WAIFS OF WAR 


where the villagers washed their 
clothes, so that the water poured 
in a continuous stream into the 
roadway and formed a deep rut. 
While we were engaged in explor¬ 
ing the village we signalled our 
chauffeur to join us and he ran into 
the rut and broke something. A 
horse pulled him out and he began 
repairs insisting that it could easily 
be done. After an hour or two 
with all the help the village could 
muster and breaking something 
else in attempting to repair the 
first, we saw that we were strand¬ 
ed in a ruined village where neither 
lodging nor food was to be had and 
night was nearly upon us. It looked 
as if we would have to spend the 
night in the auto in the cold. Our 
leader, undaunted by any difficulty, 
found a way. The mayor furnished 



LANDRES 


i57 


two horses and an ammunition 
wagon without springs, and a 
driver to take us to Romagne 
where we had seen the Y. M. C. A. 
hut and were sure of shelter. The 
chauffeur was left with the car from 
which we took the cushions and sat 
as best we could on the bench or 
floor of the cart. 

It was now dark. The driver was 
entirely shut off from us and we 
could not communicate with him 
even if it had been safe to move, 
and he could not hear us with the 
noise of the cart. The bench, a lit¬ 
tle too long, was inclined to slip 
over the tail of the cart and noth¬ 
ing could keep the rear curtains 
from slapping us. 

Away we went in our springless 
cart over the road which in a fine 
car and sunlight had threatened 



158 WAIFS OF WAR 


our safety, jouncing around and 
holding our tongues safely behind 
our teeth lest they be bitten 
off involuntarily. Yet we did risk 
a bite to eat. We had brought food 
from Paris as advised when setting 
out for the devastated regions and 
the unexpected hospitality of the 
engineers had spared our supply. 
We had shared it, however, at 
Landres with three young Ameri¬ 
can soldiers who had just arrived 
on leave, walking all the way, and 
were now close to their destina¬ 
tion. They were critically observ¬ 
ing the walls and had selected the 
least unsafe in whose shelter they 
would build a fire and pass the 
night. They did not hint that they 
needed anything but the little 
bread and chocolate we offered 
were eagerly accepted. Wish it 



LANDRES 


159 


had been more. With our little do¬ 
nation they would have a feast and 
the night would be warmer and in 
the morning these three boys 
would continue their search—each 
for the grave of his brother who 
had died in battle. 

Judging from the way we gravi¬ 
tated in the cart, the course was 
down hill all the way; judging 
from the speed, that team of horses 
was all the way beyond the control 
of the driver. We could see noth¬ 
ing and hear nothing but the c?rt 
rattling on the road. Convinced 
that the horses were running 
away, it was with a sense of escape 
that we tumbled into a rut that 
sent our knees up to chuck our 
chins and throw us all into one 
heap. After that traveling was 



i6o WAIFS OF WAR 


easier until we arrived at Romagne 
and declared ourselves Americans. 

The Y. M. C. A. was still open 
because an entertainment was in 
progress in the casino across the 
road. Word was sent for us to a 
medical officer as there were no ac¬ 
commodations for women at the Y. 
The captain-doctor had recently 
been host to a party of army nurses 
on tour and had done the honors 
so well that he was delegated to 
extend hospitality to us. Mean¬ 
while the entertainment was fin¬ 
ished and the soldiers swarmed 
into the hut and then came the en¬ 
tertainers themselves to be re¬ 
freshed. They were a double quar¬ 
tette of negroes with their man¬ 
ager who toured the camps to 
amuse our boys. When they had 
drunk hot chocolate and eaten all 



ROMAGNE 


161 


the good things offered, they re¬ 
peated for us a part of their enter¬ 
tainment of song and dance. 

The camp at Romagne was our 
negro troops, about fourteen hun¬ 
dred, with two hundred white offi¬ 
cers and troops. It was this camp 
we had seen topping the hill earlier 
in the day. Our conversation about 
negroes from the point of view of 
American women was incompre¬ 
hensible to mademoiselle and the 
photographer. However we were 
safe in an American camp and glad 
of shelter. 

Here at Romagne, on a gently 
sloping hillside limited at both 
sides by other hills is the chosen 
resting place of our hero dead of 
the Argonne. 

The doctor-host was the proud 
officer of a very recently equipped 



162 WAIFS OF WAR 


hospital of corrugated iron, arched 
and sufficiently high to prevent the 
head hitting the roof, at least in 
the center. As yet there were no 
patients and the doctor used it as 
his sleeping quarters but cheer¬ 
fully surrendered it to us because it 
had a stove. Our beds were placed 
as near it as possible but the wood 
burned out. Our heads touched the 
sides of the building and a hairpin 
striking the iron sounded like a 
general alarm on a huge iron drum. 

Cold is a word commonly used to 
express a sensation but the frigid¬ 
ity of a corrugated iron shack, on a 
canvas cot, with hard fibred blan¬ 
kets above and below calls for the 
coining of a word more intense. 
We slept with all our clothes on ex¬ 
cept shoes and dress, with our 
overcoats for night gowns. A long 



ROMAGNE 


163 


fur lined coat just kept the balance 
of heat in the body. Mademoiselle 
slept in her sealskin coat and cap 
and everything else in reach and 
yet piteously during the night 
begged to get into bed with me for 
warmth. Since one of us would, 
under such conditions, be resting 
on a wooden rod we had to bear 
the evils we had. The doctor slept 
in the next corrugated tunnel and 
conversation was possible between 
us. We were on his mind and we 
were to call him if we wanted any¬ 
thing, were not to leave the shack 
under any circumstances, and were 
to remember the firearms with 
which he supplied us and himself. 
But it was temperature and not 
temperament that prevented or 
disturbed our sleep. 



164 WAIFS OF WAR 


In the morning, the perfect ne¬ 
gro orderly came in and made a fire 
and put some water on to heat. 
Soon after the doctor came shiver¬ 
ing in and set up his shaving appar¬ 
atus while we, the uninitiated in 
masculine toilet, kept our eyes 
closed or turned our recumbent 
backs to the scene. Then it was 
our turn as one after the other we 
rolled out of bed and applied our¬ 
selves to the washdish, while mo¬ 
mentarily expecting the return of 
the orderly. Our toilets were 
safely finished before his discreet 
re-entrance. Mademoiselle allowed 
no temperature or emergency to 
interfere with her cold cream and 
other rites. Our photographer had 
remained at the Y. M. C. A. and 
stowed away as best he could in 
quarters overtaxed by visitors to 



ROMAGNE 


165 


the entertainment. His morning 
face was sad. He did not complain 
of course as he hugged the stove. 
We were all cheered by a hot and 
abundant breakfast. 

How our chauffeur passed the 
night we did not know. We were 
assured that a relief expedition 
would be sent to him and that we 
would soon be on our way. With 
confidence we saw the morning 
pass. Many reports from disabled 
autos came in. Right under our 
eyes a car was equipped for us with 
four brand new tires, but it would 
not go. When the relief party with 
our own car was due, we learned it 
had not yet set out. It was Sun¬ 
day and there were some cars for 
the dominies going opposite to our 
direction. We dined. Our host 
seemed in no hurry to speed his 



166 WAIFS OF WAR 


guests, a flattering attitude but at 
variance with our desire to show 
appreciation by an early departure 
and, since the object of our journey 
had been accomplished, to return 
to Paris. No conveyance was avail¬ 
able for the long distance, nor even 
to St. Menehould. We planned to 
teach our friends, the engineers, 
and appeal to them to advance us 
but even the telephone failed to 
serve us. We could spend another 
night here but that did not appeal 
to our energetic leader. 

Deep in my own mind was the 
hope that we might somehow ar¬ 
rive on that broad road from 
which we had turned back and that 
in our search for a way home we 
might be privileged to see the im¬ 
mortal city of Verdun. And we 
were. 



ROMAGNE 


167 


In the afternoon an ambulance 
stopped at the door of our iron hut 
and its captain-doctor and his ser¬ 
geant were served with coffee. 
They had brought some patients to 
camp and were returning to Ver¬ 
dun. What luck! This was our 
chance. They agreed to take us 
there and we could get a train in 
the evening for Chalons and next 
day to Paris. The road by which 
they had come was so bad that 
they had decided to return by an¬ 
other road, so we all set out con¬ 
tentedly in spite of the rain and 
snow. We soon found that what¬ 
ever the condition of the road by 
which they had come, no improve¬ 
ment was seen in this route, but 
hope of getting better things drew 
us on. 



168 WAIFS OF WAR 


There was not a habitation left 
standing nor a human being from 
whom to make inquiry in all this 
vast waste of a once prosperous 
land. We pitched from one hole 
into another in the little ambulance 
guided skillfully by the doctor 
where at no place was it possible 
for the four wheels to be on one 
level. No repair had been made 
since this road had borne the un¬ 
interrupted transport of war ma¬ 
terial and the holes were full of 
water which concealed the depths 
into which we must go to pass. 
Some of the crossroads had sign¬ 
posts from which the sergeant 
wiped the snow, and located the 
name on his map. At some places 
there were boards with the legend 
that this was such or such a village 
—this heap of ashes. 



LOST 


169 


We had expected to reach the 
river but were not sure of our 
crossing as many bridges had 
been destroyed. So we continued 
on this dreadful road long after 
we should have reached our 
destination, and then we whispered 
to each other the conviction long 
held that we were lost. We did not 
add to the worries of our guides by 
useless queries, but the doctor him¬ 
self finally announced that we 
were astray and could only go on 
with the hope of finding some shel¬ 
ter for the night. Then we came 
to a road high above a railway and 
it was worse, if possible, than those 
we had passed, but the gallant lit¬ 
tle car and its able driver rose to 
the occasion. Then in the distance 
we saw the river and a bridge and 
a ruined railway station. The road 



i7o WAIFS OF WAR 


there taxed our car to the utmost 
and it plunged into a hole and 
stopped. The handle of the crank 
was broken and it was axle deep in 
mud. 

From the ruins of the station a 
khaki-clad figure detached itself 
and came to us and other men came 
from somewhere to the number of 
four or five, and, under the direc¬ 
tion of the doctor, with boards and 
chains and ropes and brawn and an 
hour's labor, pulled and dug and 
drove our valiant little car out of 
the crater. There were only a few 
of our boys stationed here and only 
two on duty at this hour, but what 
a comfort to know they were near. 

We learned that we had indeed 
lost our way, that we were on the 
wrong side of the river and travel¬ 
ing north instead of south. We 



VERDUN 


171 

crossed the bridge and on a perfect 
road sped away to Verdun. 

All hope of a train had been 
given up. There was not even a 
guard at the station. In this ruined 
city there were said to be barracks 
of some kind for wanderers like 
ourselves but it was night and none 
of us knew the way. The doctor 
could not leave us without shelter 
so carried us two miles further on 
to the hospital. We felt like pil¬ 
grims at a wayside inn, but this 
was a wartime hospital in a devas¬ 
tated land. Suppertime was past 
but we were served. In the nurses’ 
quarters there were twenty cots or 
more in a cold dreary room for 
wayfarers but it was infinitely bet¬ 
ter than the prospects of that 
afternoon, and sleep was possible. 



172 WAIFS OF WAR 


In the morning pancakes for 
breakfast and the luxury of white 
bread. Ordinarily an adult's atten¬ 
tion is not unduly centered on food, 
but in this region of desolation 
army food seemed unusually appe¬ 
tizing. 

Reporting to the authorities, 
there was a long conference about 
the stranded auto at Landres-St. 
Georges, and then the offer of an¬ 
other car to take us to Bar-le-Duc 
for a train to Paris. We were to 
leave at one o'clock. Meanwhile 
we visited the canteens. We met 
the young ladies who had been at 
the engineers' party at Varennes, 
and members of Vassar Unit who 
were here for reconstruction work. 

One o’clock found us ready. The 
chauffeur was a handsome young 
man, bustling with misdirected en- 



VERDUN 


i73 


ergy, grazing the curbs and skid¬ 
ding the slopes. He had been a 
taxi driver in Paris and we agreed 
he had the mien of an Apache. We 
dashed along a street of ruins 
when he suddenly stopped, leaped 
from the car and knocked at a door. 
The officer for whom we were wait¬ 
ing was there and came out to 
speed us on our way. Next we 
dashed to the camp of German 
prisoners to get something, re¬ 
traced our way and were off. It 
seemed too good to be true and it 
was. In half an hour something 
happened to the air in the front tire 
and it continued to happen so that 
we spent two of the four hours 
journey standing on the roadside. 
The tube had already been patched 
eight times before it was placed at 
our service but it takes more than 



174 WAIFS OF WAR 


a defective tire to keep our taxi 
man from an excursion. We would 
gladly have bundled ourselves 
aboard a cart of any sort to be on 
our way but all vehicles were re¬ 
turning at this hour instead of go¬ 
ing in our direction. We could have 
coasted into Bar-le-Duc if the 
wheels had been round. It was 
now past train time and there was 
no need to hurry. It was an Amer¬ 
ican who finally gave us a helping 
hand and we limped into the city 
on three wheels. Our chauffeur had 
many friends to greet him with 
much noise and laughter. 

The two hotels were crowded, 
the streets busy, the restaurants 
normal. When we awoke at five 
in the morning there were Ameri¬ 
can soldiers waiting for our beds 
who lost no time in tumbling in 



HOMEWARD 


175 


after their hours of vigil. At six 
o’clock we were on our way to 
Paris and would not have been sur¬ 
prised at anything that might have 
befallen us. 

HOMEWARD BOUND 

Paris, adieu! Two days at Mar¬ 
seilles before we went aboard ship. 
An old classmate and myself 
climbed the heights, descended to 
the wharves, ate the special foods, 
and listened to the fishwives bar¬ 
tering in the markets. The won¬ 
derful harbor had no suggestion of 
a busy port and a great commercial 
city. A battalion of small boats 
rode at anchor, while only an occa¬ 
sional cargo of shimmering sar¬ 
dines was brought to shore. The 
marvellous blue of the sea, the glit¬ 
tering hills, the temple-crowned 



176 WAIFS OF WAR 


peak, the fortresses, the romantic 
island-prison lay in the splendor of 
a springtime sun—the theater of 
the dramas and tragedies of 
twenty-five centuries. 

At the dock, a long line of our 
soldiers was going aboard, almost 
doubting, even yet, their good for- 
tune—the fulfillment of their 
heart’s desire—going home. They 
had short notice of departure and 
here they were actually going 
aboard. We waited and ship ru¬ 
mor said it was for more troops 
and they came and then a storm 
arose and we waited but at noon of 
the second day we sailed. 

On the evening of the following 
day we anchored at Oran in Al- 
gerie, for coal, not the usual station 
and said to be an extraordinary 
proceeding. Never were boys so 



ORAN 


177 


happy as ours, late from the mud 
and the rain and the ruins of 
France, when they were given 
shore leave in this dry, warm, 
white city in gala attire that day, 
to receive its own returning for¬ 
eign legions. 

Our presence caused much sur¬ 
prise and excitement. We were 
unknown. It was said we were the 
first American troops to visit the 
city. The marines had been there 
and tourists also in days gone by. 
W e were surrounded by such 
crowds during the two days’ leave 
that it was almost impossible to 
progress. 

The people are French, Spanish, 
Arabs, Moroccans, Jews, Algerians 
and others, especially, on this day 
when the returning legions were 
passing through to the interior. 



178 WAIFS OF WAR 


The movement of the many differ¬ 
ent races in varied dress beneath 
the palms and the flowers of the 
plaza was kaleidoscopic. It was 
the living scenes of a hundred pic¬ 
tured pages, the actors of a thou¬ 
sand romances. 

At first it seemed to me that the 
crowd surrounded me because of 
the novelty of a woman in khaki or 
because of interest in my compan¬ 
ion, a boy in sergeant's uniform, 
who had served with two other 
armies and been adopted by ours, 
but a glance showed every Ameri¬ 
can surrounded as myself by 
warmhearted and courteous 
though curious crowds. 

Two young men had just offered 
to show me the places of interest, 
especially “le village negre,” when 
a young French medical officer, 



ORAN 


179 


catching a few words from the 
crowd, made his way through the 
circle and greeted me. We had 
often been fellow - travelers to 
Paris. Under his escort traveling 
was easy and we started for the 
village of the Arabs, meeting many 
of them on the way, picturesque in 
turban, gown and sandals. The 
women were robed in white and so 
hooded that only one eye was visi¬ 
ble. Thus veiled they view the 
world from early womanhood until 
age has robbed them of every 
charm that might allure. 

From the central plaza in the vil¬ 
lage of the Arabs, “le village ne- 
gre,” flanked by low white houses, 
we entered one of the many little 
restaurants wide open to the 
street.. On a rug on the floor were 
seated, crossed-legged, gray-beard- 



180 WAIFS OF WAR 


ed Arabs playing cards, smoking 
and sipping coffee. I joined them, 
declining a chair which the doctor 
accepted. We were served a tiny 
cup of coffee prepared on the in¬ 
stant, hot and sweet and black and 
appetizing. 

In the plaza, in the center of a 
large group of men seated on the 
ground a singer, handsome, vigor¬ 
ous, intense, swayed and danced 
and gesticulated and chanted to 
the music of primitive drums. It 
was a ceremony by a visiting holy 
man. From time to time, at a 
word, the audience touched brow 
and lips and breast with the rapid¬ 
ity of long habit. 

On the second trip to this village 
we visited a school where husky 
little Arabs, five or six years old, 
sat crowded on benches, learning 



ORAN 


181 


French from their stalwart teacher 
of the family of the Prophet. They 
were all boys and each wore his fez 
in school. 

The anteroom of the baths was 
furnished with many low couches. 
We entered for an instant the su¬ 
perheated room, separated by a 
heavy door and draperies from the 
anteroom. It was very large, fitted 
with pipes from which came jets of 
hot water to the bathers seated on 
the floor. 

On entering the harbor we had 
seen many white domes which 
marked the holy places and now 
we visited the mosque, leaving our 
shoes in the vestibule. The midday 
worshippers were few. Devotions 
were long. One huge black man 
varied the upright position by deep 
inflections and by prostrations, 



182 WAIFS OF WAR 


while another believer rolled his 
rug for a pillow and reclined in de¬ 
votion. There was no furniture 
except the rugs on floor and walls 
and a simple shrine beyond the ken 
of the Christian. 

On the second visit to the city we 
made the acquaintance of a young 
French woman who had spent her 
whole life here, had done her share 
of war work, and who had several 
brothers in the service of her 
country, which is France. On part¬ 
ing, she gave me from a slender 
chain around her neck, a “lucky 
hand” of Arabic workmanship. A 
bronze U. S. from my uniform 
seemed to her an inestimable re¬ 
turn. 

Oran is an interesting city with 
its palms and parks, its white 
earth and its mingled races. From 



ORAN 


183 


the harbor, the idea of the fitness 
of things is satisfied in the moun¬ 
tain which rises steep from the 
shore, its lofty summit crowned 
with a fortress. But after two 
days when the nearly naked Arabs 
had finished coaling by buckets, we 
sailed away through the Strait 
of Gibraltar over a calm sea to our 
own dear native land. 


The End 




















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